The Myth of Control
by ShutUpAndPull
Summary: An entry for the Castle Ficathon Winter 2019, because S4 told me to: This is a story about love, pure and in no way simple.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Wishing all writers and readers an enjoyable event, and offering continued thanks to our host for his support. Happy holidays, one and all. Much love, K**

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**Chapter 1**

Kate's captain and the rest of her team had already gone, taken off for people and places personal that Monday night, and the bullpen around her at the 12th Precinct was left blanketed by a hush as still as that of a vacant church.

It'd been a day much the opposite, a toilsome day in the universe she inhabited, its hours dragging almost as if in punishment for what only it knew had taken place in the hours of the weekend before. Well, what only it and Rick knew. He'd been in the bed, too, after all. More than that, he'd been the one left bloodied in the battle that'd been the aftermath, sadly by friendly fire.

He never showed up that day, nor did he call, text, email, or utilize any other form of communication to let her know as much. When she woke at 5 a.m., or, more accurately, finally pushed her body off the couch at 5 a.m. because she'd hardly slept worth a damn, a part of her-the part awash in guilt-actually hoped she wouldn't have to see him, but when wouldn't passed into couldn't, the ache of how they'd left things began to gnaw at her heart with even greater ferocity.

Despite the weariness her case and her anger with herself had set into her muscles and bones, she didn't want to go home. Home was where the bed was, where it'd happened and happened more than once.

In her work was where Kate hid from scary things, as flawed and foolish as that logic was, considering what she came face-to-face with there every day. Funny how, over and over again, swallowing the poison of the worst humanity had to offer proved easier a task than admitting her true feelings. And, given some of what Rick had said before he'd walked out on her, it wasn't as though she'd been doing a great job of hiding them, anyway.

She turned, glared with defeat at the puzzle pieces she had pinned to and scribbled across the murder board she'd been glaring at for three days, and it only served to feed her frustration. Her bag of theories was empty, as was Rick's chair, sitting there like a flashing neon sign of her failures, and one of the two had her reaching for her phone.

"Sorry, I didn't expect you to answer," she offered in apology to her therapist for her less than graceful salutation. "It's late."

"Neither of us works a nine-to-five job, Kate. I have paperwork just like you do. What's going on? Is everything all right?" Burke asked, equally surprised to find her on the other end of his line, regardless of the hour. They'd met for a regular appointment just the week prior, and it was unusual for her to reach out between sessions.

She hadn't told Lanie about what'd happened, not yet. She would, of course, but she needed the weight of it off her shoulders without the oohs and aahs, first, and Burke already knew enough about her-about her and Rick's… circumstance-to understand that.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Do you, um, have some time to talk, maybe? I know I'm not scheduled for-"

"Yes, Kate, I can make time." He consulted his calendar, found himself with a later start the following morning. "I can see you early tomorrow. Would 7:30 a.m. work?"

She agreed with thanks and hung up, pulled a highlighter out of her desk drawer and buried herself in a fourth pass of phone and credit card records. Even with the modicum of relief Burke's accommodation brought, she still wasn't ready to go home.

**xxxx**

"You're not going to sit?" It wasn't the first visit to Burke's office that she hadn't, but he'd learned she only paced when she was particularly worked up about something. He waited, but acknowledgement never came. "Would you like to tell me what's going on, Kate? I don't think me trying to guess would serve either of us."

Kate hands were balled up into fists so tight that even the fingernails she kept trimmed to nothing were digging into her palms.

"I slept with Rick." She was already facing the door and seriously considered running, but to where? She could've run forever and never been able to get away from it, not that that was even what she really wanted. "We slept together, this past weekend, after Ryan's wedding."

"I see. And you're feeling what about that?"

She spun around, snapped at him. "I don't know what I'm fucking feeling about it. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how I feel about it. Fuck, I don't even know if he's coming back."

"Kate, sit down, please. Sit down and take a breath." He thanked her when she acquiesced, managed it without sounding patronizing. "When you're ready, can we start at the beginning here? It's clear that whatever happened was more than that singular event."

She wore heels and kicked them off, tucked her feet up under her in the oversize chair. The beginning was the easy part. It was the very real possibility of the end that had a lump wedged in her throat.

**xxxx**

Three days earlier, Rick was standing in his bedroom closet, his daughter working to straighten his tie while being bombarded with a host of grumblings over her decision to ditch him at the last minute as his date for Kevin and Jenny's wedding to attend a concert instead.

"Get real, Dad, we all know-Gram, too-you should've asked Beckett to go with you from the beginning. Now you'll both be there alone. Do you know how many hookups happen at weddings?" Alexis asked sounding like she had statistics at the ready.

He flicked her a look brimming with fatherly disapproval. "Okay, now the only wedding you'll ever be attending is your own-and even then." When she stopped fidgeting with him, he stepped around her for the full-length mirror. "The old man's still got it," he cooed at his reflection.

"How does Beckett feel about old men?" she teased. "That doctor she was with definitely wasn't old."

Rick set a stray bit of hair back off his forehead. "Gee, thanks so much for bringing him up, but nice try, daughter of mine, but you have not succeeded in your quest to rattle me. After all, look who's still standing, and in dapper fashion, I might add." There was something almost sinister in his tone, certainly swagger.

"All right, I need to go," he said with a glance at his watch. "I'm not sure when I'll be home. Ryan's Irish. Who knows how wild this reception could get? Text me after the show, so I can guilt-trip you some more between drunk leprechaun jokes."

Alexis moved in behind him, set her hands and pushed, the way he often did with her in her socked feet around the loft.

"Bring some cake home for me. I'm your daughter and, though I'm deserting you, the rules say you have to love me and pocket me some in spite of it. Besides, this is going to work out better. I can feel it. You'll be thanking me later."

He plucked his keys from the kitchen counter and dropped them into his jacket pocket. "Sounds like something I'd say that Beckett would roll her eyes at me for," he replied and knew he was right. What neither of them could know in that moment, though, was just how wrong Alexis would turn out to be.

**xxxx**

"I guess I should just be grateful my mother wasn't available to fill in," Rick joked to Kate as they stood together in the church's entryway before the ceremony. "The woman weighs all of four pounds, but she could probably drink Ryan's entire family under the table. Imagine the gift I'd have to give to make up for that scene."

"Like mother, like son, Castle?"

"Well, if I'm being honest, I'm more like six or seven pounds, and I might be able to show up a cousin or something. Stick around for the show, Detective," he said in an overdone come-hither voice, when his eyes suddenly crinkled at the corners. "I just realized. I'm sorry I haven't said this already, but you look beautiful, Kate-really just… beautiful."

It hung just above her knee, the dress of simple grey she'd chosen for the affair, one that hugged her elegant body in estimable service, and one that pleased not only its wearer for its generosities, but also, as evidenced by Rick's steadfast focus, the only other person she'd thought about when she'd slipped into it that afternoon.

Kate's fingers tangled together from the surge of nervous energy that instantly coursed through her. How profound the shift in her body's response to his proximity, to his gaze, to his soft words, since it'd secretly submitted to its want of his, and the manifestations of that shift were becoming tougher to keep hidden.

"Thank you, Castle." Self-consciousness and self-assurance grabbed hold of her in equal part. He didn't know it, but he possessed a unique way of inspiring both at once. "You do, too." Her chin dropped and Rick giggled a breath at the sweetness of her fluster. "You know what I mean," she pointed out without need.

"So, what'll it be," he asked and presented a hand, "your pew or mine? Since neither of us is on someone else's arm, I'd be honored if the beautiful detective would accompany me inside."

Kate slid her hand into his, felt more than a friend or a partner ever would with their union. "You don't cry at weddings, do you, Castle? A gal's got a reputation to maintain."

"Never at them, no," Rick said as they made their way in as one. "Usually only afterward and when they're mine."

**xxxx**

Nearly all of Kevin and Jenny's invited guests from the 12th were seated around the same circular table at the reception hall, save for a few who were still within earshot, which made for something of a rambunctious little cop corner, once the alcohol started to flow.

Though Javi and Lanie both arrived at the ceremony with dates of sorts-its own bit of melodrama, it turned out-they nonetheless ended up at the table beside one another, his cousin and her doctor friend chatting it up, while Lanie did the same with Kate.

"So, are you going to ask Castle to dance or what? You should. It'd be good for you two to practice," she commented coolly around a sip of champagne. It wasn't the first splash of gasoline she'd tossed into the fire that evening, and it surely wouldn't be her last if her glass continued to find itself full. "Don't give me that deer-in-headlights look. You know we're going to be at one of these for you guys someday."

Javi shoveled a huge bite of cake into his mouth like he knew it was the last food he'd ever eat. "No kidding," he chimed in, continuing to dig at the mound of vanilla and raspberry on his plate.

"Would you just stop it, Lanie?" Kate attempted to order more than ask, though she knew full well her best friend would do no such thing. Her eyes slid toward Rick, who, thankfully, was locked in conversation with the chief of detectives. "I shouldn't even waste my breath. You're as bad as he is. Neither of you listens to me."

"Who am I as bad as, your future husband?" Lanie asked with a snicker, Javi jumping into the chorus. "Girl, what is it going to take for you to get it through that pretty little head of yours that none of us has enough time in this life to play things safe? You already made out with the guy, and you said you liked it. You know he's into it. What's the damn problem?"

"Whoa!" Javi blurted out and attracted attention. "Who'd you make out with? Castle? You made out with Castle?"

Kate let her eyes close. Lanie elbowed Javi. Rick's head whipped around.

"Okay, I heard my name and something about making out." He tapped his chest. "I have a pocketful of mints at the ready. Who's game?"

"Dude, you're smoochin' on Beckett and you didn't tell us? What the hell?"

Rick looked at Kate, who appeared seconds from shooting steam out of her ears. "First, Esposito, there isn't a blow to the head hard enough I could take that would ever make me forget I was lucky enough to be granted that pleasure. Second, you have frosting on your lip. Don't waste it. The stuff is gold."

Kate opened her eyes again with the offhand tribute. Even seemingly without trying, he could still get her.

"Can we stop talking about this, please?" she begged of the three. "There isn't even a _this_ to talk about."

"You just keep telling yourself that," Lanie slid out of the corner of her mouth. "Tick, tock."

"Whatever. I'm going to get more cake," Javi announced and walked off, left Kate and Rick sitting there silent, each wondering if the other was also now playing out that night in their mind, that kiss in the alley that hadn't been and never could be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The scene bore all the hallmarks of one lifted straight out of a junior high dance: the opening notes of a syrupy song, the nervous glances and awkward smiles, the boy and the girl tiptoeing around one another from afar, wondering when or if the other would make a move. But there in that ballroom, beneath the cliché that might've seemed the moment's outward appearances, for Kate and Rick, it was certainly no kids' game.

With a spirited deejay at the helm and a pair of bartenders generous of pour, the evening's celebration was long into high gear, the merriment as plentiful as the alcohol helping to serve as its fuel. Knee-deep in the imperative of newlyweds to kiss every cheek, Kevin and Jenny were on their umpteenth float around the room, their hands ever joined, almost as though sewn together as one by love.

The couple laughed with their families and friends, shed a joyful tear now and again, and Kate and Rick had watched them, independently and without admission, all the while engaged in a remarkably similar reverie, one not unfamiliar to either.

"Why don't you go over there and get her, Castle?" Kevin said, catching Rick off guard and appreciating precisely why. "Look at her. This song is a perfect excuse."

"Aw, finally, he's playing it. I danced to this four times at my prom," Jenny giggled, sweet and tipsy, having caught on late. "I love Kate, don't you?" she added after a beat. "You should marry that Kate, Rick Castle."

"Whoa, sweetie, okay." Kevin kissed her on the cheek. "Maybe slow it down a little." Then he turned back to Rick and muttered. "She's right, though. You should. Being married is the _best_."

He'd been so all of five seconds, and because of it, Rick was able to play off his guffaw of discomfort as one of amusement.

He dropped a heavy hand onto Kevin's shoulder, his eyes tracking Kate as she headed away from the bar and back around to their table. "You know, buddy, even with two divorces under my belt, I wouldn't be the one that needed convincing."

"She's been through a lot, Castle, but we all see it," Kevin offered reassuringly, "even if she doesn't think we can." When Jenny suddenly squealed and waved a wild arm at someone, he excused them both with apology. "Sorry, I've gotta-" He flicked his chin in Kate's direction. "Don't waste the song, and don't waste any more time, Castle. I didn't expect it, either, and look where I am today."

"Go. Get outta here, you crazy kids," Rick said and sent them off, told them he'd catch them again on their next loop, and felt his pulse kick up a notch when he peeped Kate smiling at one of their tablemates. Far beyond any room, she'd lit up his entire life with that smile, and the wait for something that might never be, while one he had no intention of giving up, was a torment unlike any his heart, mind, and body had ever known.

By taking a circuitous route, he gifted himself a few extra seconds of devouring her from a distance, before settling his hands on the back of her chair and leaning in for her ear.

"Is it my turn, yet, to dance with the most beautiful woman here?" he asked little above a whisper.

Kate slowly turned her head, and her cheek brushed his. "Jenny's already out there, Castle, and it doesn't look like Ryan's letting go of her anytime soon. Guess you're out of luck." Her lips curved when she felt him sink into her hair.

"Stand up, Detective." He didn't wait, pulled back on her chair. "If you don't enjoy it, you can dump me as your partner-your _dance_ partner," he quickly amended. "No hard feelings."

She swallowed a sip from her fresh glass of wine, and, with aid of his gentlemanly hand, did as he'd insisted and got up. "That's a shame. For a second there, you had me excited," she teased, her fingers still wrapped around his and leading him away.

The instant their feet hit the parquet floor Rick curled her body into his. The hand he anchored at the arc of her lower back he held firm, possessive-proud. They'd danced together closely like that before, long before, last at the wedding of an ex-girlfriend of Rick's, but he hadn't dared hold her that way, not with such demonstration of claim, nor would Kate have permitted him to.

Flirtation had always been an ingredient in the recipe of their relationship, communicated in largest part through the language of humor because there was safety there for both, but whether the spell of the champagne, the cloud of love that hung over the day, or some other shared influence, they'd seemed to have found themselves in some new territory. And they could both feel it.

"Is there some rule that this song has to play anytime there's dancing going on anywhere?"

Kate's fingertips were resting at the base of his neck and tickled the tiny hairs there when he momentarily let his head dip. "Clapton obviously has an in with someone. Jenny just told me she danced to it four times at her prom, but, then again, she is pretty sloshed, so that might not be a reliable gauge." After a transient pause to collect the words he lost in the face of the dulcet laughter she returned, he was able to finish his thought. "Wonderful doesn't even begin to touch the way you look tonight, by the way."

Unconsciously, her fingers crept up the back of his neck and into his hair.

"That's nice of you to say, Castle, thank you. And, yeah, Jenny's definitely enjoying herself. The last time they came around, she pinched my cheeks and told me I should be marrying you. Then she kissed Ryan in a way I could've happily lived the rest of my life without seeing," she went on before what she'd said hit her and butterflies kicked up.

Rick noted the abrupt departure of her smile, the way it vanished into a less cheery replacement, and not entirely certain which direction he should take it-because there was more than one-he opted for a customary wisecrack, if only for her benefit.

"She said you should marry me, huh? Well, then I guess you're out of luck, too. I never ask brunettes."

"Shut up and dance, Castle," Kate sneered and he hugged her in tighter.

**xxxx**

Sometime later, in need of fresh air and a time-out from the crowd, Rick grabbed Kate by the hand and snuck her out a side door he'd discovered off the ballroom earlier, one that led down a ramp of herringbone-patterned brick and into a clearing of grass, surrounded by trees. Darkness had hold of the sky, but tiny white lights dangled like icicles from strings on the trees' overhanging branches, their soft twinkle almost like stars within their reach.

"How did you find this, Castle? What is this?" Kate tiptoed the edge of the modest glade, followed its hook along the wood, delicately grazing leaves with her fingers as she passed. "This is incredible. It's like a fairy tale."

Rick pointed off in the distance, to nowhere in particular. "There's a gazebo over there, too. I saw it before." He glided a couple of steps and stood in what would likely be her path. "A thing about me is I'm nosy."

"You don't say," Kate quipped and then stumbled but managed to recover before she went down.

"You're buzzed, Detective." His grin practically emitted sound it was so hearty. "I've never seen it. I like it on you."

She came to a stop within a foot of him, planted her fists on her hips. "_I'm_ buzzed? Up until four minutes ago, you were wearing a napkin on your head, Castle." Her body shivered when the breeze nipped at her bare arms.

"Speaking of wearing something put this around you," he said and removed his jacket, reached around, and draped it over the back of her shoulders. How easy it would've been in that moment to slide his fingers into her hair and bring her mouth to his for a taste of the sweet champagne on her lips. How excruciating it was that easy was so fucking difficult. "I didn't bring you out here to freeze you to death. As for the napkin, you've never given me enough credit for my fashion sense."

"Mmm, thank you," Kate hummed in pleasure. "You made it so warm." She bunched the lapels together up under her chin. She was swimming in the thing, but the fabric smelled of him, so the rest didn't matter. "You're not cold now?"

Rick pushed another button of his shirt through its matched hole, his tie long since done away with. "Actually, I usually find myself inordinately warm when I'm around you. It's true," he affirmed when her forehead crinkled. "I find myself… a lot of things when I'm around you."

Oh, she was buzzed, and she knew it. Kate felt like she was floating above the ground, balancing on the high wire she'd once stretched taut between them to keep herself from doing something she thought she might regret, but it had now become nearly invisible beneath her feet.

"Do you want to get married?" Her eyes opened wide. He could just about make out the glitter of the full collection of lights in their glass. That was how wide. "Wait, okay, Beckett, that came out wrong. Don't worry. I wasn't asking like that. I didn't mean to me-Whatever I should be saying right now to help you start breathing again."

Not the least bit naturally, a tiny titter slipped from her parted lips. "Of course you weren't, Castle. I know." _Did I know?_ she silently asked herself. "I'm fine, and, yes, I do want to, someday. I used to talk about it with my mom. I'd tell her how I didn't want a whole big wedding and that I'd be fine just running off and doing it in secret. She always told me I'd change my mind."

Rick loved the song in her spirit when she spoke of her mother.

"Have you?"

"Nope," she replied without hesitation. "Today was nice, though. Ryan and Jenny seem really happy." She looked down at her feet, away from his eyes. "I guess it really does happen for some people-happiness like that, love like that."

"What would make you happy, Kate?" He inched closer, masked it in as much subtlety as he could. "Right now, tonight, if I was a genie and I had the power to grant you a wish, what would you ask for?"

Rick knew the answer even before he asked, but there was some part of him that hoped, and that part of him was alive and humming as they stood there together, her face bathed in that soft light, her body wrapped safely in his warmth.

"I'd want my mom to be free. I'd want to give her that."

Her voice was slight, rickety with all the years of heartache and fight and pain, and with a disappointment he couldn't know. Her answer wasn't truthful. No, it was, but there was something more, and she was handed yet another opportunity to admit it. He wanted her to admit it. She could feel that as surely as she could the wisps of wind whirling across her cheeks.

"I've never known anyone as incredible as you. You should have everything. God, Kate, I wish you'd let me give you everything."

She turned away. Rather her body turned away, but her heart remained. "Castle," she whispered, expected it not to be heard.

"I know. I'm sorry. That was too far, and I'm sorry." Rick let his hand gently touch her back. "Come on. Let's go back inside. You're cold, and I'm an idiot."

"I want you to kiss me," she said. "That's what I want right now, more than anything."

They'd left the music. They'd left the buzz of the crowd. The only things to be heard in that clearing, surrounded by those trees and illuminated by those lights, were the faint symphony of night and her words, and though they'd been as clear to him as she was standing there, Rick nevertheless could only believe he'd imagined them.

"I knew this had to be a dream. It was all too perfect." He inserted a chuckle. "I guess that's the punishment for a man who's chosen to spend much of his time in a land of make-believe. The line between what's real and what isn't can get pretty blurry."

Kate spun around with impressive grace for a woman who'd consumed the amount of alcohol she had, took hold of him by the sleeves of his shirt, and pressed a firm kiss against his lips.

"God, you talk a lot," she sighed when she pulled away. "Did that feel real enough for you?"

The exasperation in her tone was so perfectly and definitively his Beckett, it gave him chills.

"It didn't feel anywhere near long enough. I can tell you that," Rick replied and then granted her wish.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Back inside, Kate reached down and picked up Lanie's handbag from beneath the table, unzipped it, and pulled out her phone, which she'd tucked away for safekeeping. Rick and Javi were sitting at the next table over, had been for the better part of an hour, one crowded with men from the precinct, engaged in conversation about whatever it was that inspired men to a raucous burst of collective laughter in what seemed, like clockwork, two-minute intervals.

"What're you do-in'?" Lanie asked, heckled, now, by her third bout of hiccups. She, too, had passed the state of buzzed a few exits ago. "Everyone you'd be calling is in this party room."

Kate couldn't help but be amused by her boozed-up friend's amusement in herself. Probably because her head, in similar fashion, had grown just as light.

And because the kiss was still on her lips. Well, there'd been more than one, in fact, and they'd been as deep and long as the want and the wait for their realization, their secret then left to the whispers of the trees.

Her eyes drifted again and landed on Rick. She'd barely been able to keep them elsewhere since they'd returned from their interlude, and though difficult it ordinarily was for her to be without the control she so desperately clung to, whatever it was about that night that'd led them down that untrodden path had her entranced as she'd never been.

"It's late. I'm calling a cab." Kate sounded downright whiny at the prospect, but her eyes did smile when she made out Rick's laughter in the circle's most recent outburst. "I want my bed."

"Girl, you are not getting in any damn cab," Lanie shot back. "_Castle!"_ she hollered loud enough to wake the dead, and he came around in his chair like she'd alerted a fire, jumped up when she waved him over.

Rick walked up behind the women, set a hand upon a shoulder of each. Kate's hair was soft beneath his fingers, just as soft as it'd been clinched in his fist earlier.

"You bellowed, m'lady?" he said jokingly. By that hour, everyone was in a kindred state of cheekiness.

Lanie elbowed Kate, who wasn't at all pleased about it. "This one is try-ing to call a cab." Another hiccup interjected, that one accompanied by a pronounced twitch, and it elicited a giggle from the other two. "You have a car, rich guy. Drive the woman home."

If Kate's mouth had been full, she would've sprayed far and wide. Her well-intentioned bosom buddy didn't know of the lip-lock or of the precarious course she was now attempting to set her on.

"Really, that's not-" Kate tried to voice her objection, but Rick jumped in over it.

"Why, of course I have a car," he announced puffing himself up with unmerited pride, "but I'm afraid I would have to walk home to get it." Relief swept over Kate. Its visit was all too brief. "However, a car service is on standby for my signal, and I will gladly share my waiting chariot with the lovely detective."

Lanie tipped back the few drops that coated the bottom of her glass. "She wants her bed," she mocked clearly peeved by the affront she considered Kate's desertion.

Rick produced his phone from his pocket. "Me too," he mumbled. Though unacknowledged, Kate managed to catch it, Lanie didn't. "I'll just go call then."

He walked off, and Kate immediately pounced. "You didn't have to do that, Lanie. I'm a big girl. I can get myself home." It quietly amazed her how rapidly too much to drink could pass into not enough.

Lanie shook her head. "No, you are a hot woman in need of a ride, and I do not mean by a cab or any other kind of car. You and Castle have been up on each other all night. Please, I did you a huge favor and you are welcome."

Rick abruptly ducked his head back in. "My driver said he'll be here in fifteen minutes."

As if Kate wasn't properly freaked out already.

**xxxx**

Side by side they sat in the back of the luxury town car, its cabin, as such, walled off by a partition from the driver Rick had slipped a generous fold of bills for the additional, unplanned stop at Kate's building.

"Did she have a good time?" Kate stole a peek at his phone, at the photos from Alexis's concert date he appeared to be scrolling through. She felt like a kid in class without her homework, just waiting for her teacher to come around and collect it. She might as well have kicked up a conversation about the weather for as awkward as she felt.

"Hopefully not as good as I did," he replied hoping the implication unsubtle enough, in spite of the haze alcohol had delivered them both. "Did you… have fun?" He dimmed his phone, hid it away.

Kate grinned a wicked little grin and then tossed a playful strike across his plate. "You know, I think Ryan and Jenny might actually throw a better party than you, Castle. And they were on a budget."

"Hey, watch it, gorgeous. I tap on that glass and Philippe pulls over, you'll be walking home in those," he cautioned, referring to the heels that were somehow even more impossibly high than usual. His voice softened with her snicker. "I hope you did." It was the mightiest understatement.

Kate let her head sink into the pillowy leather headrest and her eyes close. Rick was watching her, she knew. She could feel it. "God, I haven't done this in so long," she said and let out a prolonged exhale.

"Sat in the backseat?" he retorted, quick as ever. "This one sure beats a cab's." He likewise settled his head. "Yep, yep, sure does."

Neither spoke a word over the next couple of minutes, but it wasn't because there was nothing to be said. It was because there was so much.

Eventually, Kate was the one to break the heavy silence. "I did have fun, Castle. What happened tonight was… unexpected, but I like that it happened."

Rick would've been a puddle on the floor had he not been strapped into a seat belt.

"Yeah, me too."

He responded simply that, cautiously muted, and for the remainder of the ride to her place, was left to wonder if he'd ever felt so dead on his feet and remarkably alive at once.

**xxxx**

The Lincoln was double-parked just feet from her building's front door when Philippe, their driver, came around and opened for Kate, Rick simultaneously climbing out of the car to see her safely inside. Like so many of her past protests, tried and failed, her insistence that the chivalry was unnecessary fell on his deaf ears, and still treading lightly, that he considered every minute spent with her to be a privilege-while true-wasn't the argument he chose to present.

"It's not that I think you're incapable, Detective. It's that I'm a gentleman, and a gentleman walks a lady to her door." He flashed two fingers at Philippe to signal the two minutes he'd be gone and offered Kate his arm, which she grudgingly curled hers around. "Wait, are you sure you can walk all right, Boozy Beckett, or do I need to carry you?" She rolled her eyes, obscured by the darkness, but he sensed it just the same.

The building's lobby was quiescent and dim, pleasantly warm after even the short walk from the car. Unwrapping herself from his jacket for the second time that night, she relinquished it with sincere thanks. For the evening's chill, she really hadn't planned.

"I think I'm going to wait for a while to have this cleaned," Rick said. "It smells like you now." Kate didn't admit she'd thought the very thing of him when she'd first tightened it around her, but she relished the sentiment even more because of it. "Okay, well, I don't live here and there's a Frenchman out there on the clock, so I guess I should probably go."

He had a hand on the door when she stopped him.

"Castle…" It was all she got out before she felt the battle raging between her heart and her mind flare to a crescendo. In its wake-again-only the latter remained standing. "Thank you for bringing me home."

"Well, Philippe did most of the work," he joked, "but you're welcome. Get some sleep. I'll see you on Monday. Good night."

Kate remained in the lobby once he'd gone, watched him cross the shadowed sidewalk and disappear into the back of the car. Every time she swallowed the words being close to him sparked in her, it cut like a knife. Every time she watched him go without knowing it was more agonizing than the last. She felt like a coward, standing there alone.

She finally made her way upstairs, flipped on a single light switch and kicked off the heels she'd been in a one-sided fight with for hours. Driving her fingers through her hair, she yanked open the refrigerator door. Why, she had no idea. She was neither thirsty nor hungry, and what she was could never be satisfied by anything she might find inside. Surely not the lonely pair of lemons staring back at her.

She pushed it closed again, circled the island like there was some purpose to it and grumbled out a "_Fuck_." How many times she'd told him to keep his mouth shut, to allow her an ounce of damn peace to think, and now, in the stillness of her apartment, in the middle of the night, all she could think about was the sound of his voice, and how she wished she could hear it.

On the way to the bathroom, she unzipped her dress down the back by half, allowed her lungs their first deep breath in what seemed like months. Reflected in the mirror were weary eyes, the hues she'd painted them with faded like watercolors.

Beneath the twinkle of lights that danced across those branches, Rick had drawn a thumb along her cheek, and in remembering, she allowed her fingertip to trace the same path. It didn't feel the same. Nothing for her ever would. His heart had seen to that.

She washed her skin bare of makeup and, in doing so, missed the initial knock when she rinsed, but she caught the second, as well as the furrow of her brow it prompted, given the hour. Though she was a cop, and one on perpetual high alert by reason of the scar that evidenced the active target on her back, she nonetheless walked straight past her weapon hanging in its holster and to the front door carrying only a hand towel.

Champagne and wistfulness, it appeared, were a dicey combination.

With a squint Kate checked the peephole, and practically leapt backward when she saw Rick standing on the other side of its fisheye lens. She didn't understand. He'd gone. She'd watched him get into the car and get driven off by Philippe. Now he was there, outside her apartment, waiting. And she looked awful.

She couldn't very well ignore him. He knew she was there. So she opened, and his sweet smile instantly had her hand clamped around the door handle for balance.

"Castle, what-?"

"Wow," he said accidentally with his mouth instead of his eyes. Assuming him jarred by her raw appearance, she immediately set to apologizing it away. "If you were living in my body just now, you'd understand how much you didn't have to say any of what you just said." He released a half sigh. "Your strap is…"

Kate dropped her chin in defeat. With her dress unzipped as it was, it'd crept off her shoulder, the flap of fabric leaving her bra exposed. She didn't even move to try to fix it. What was the point?

"What are you doing here, Castle?" She slung the towel over her shoulder to try to help mitigate the embarrassment, at least.

"Right," he said, dug a hand into the pocket of his jacket, and came out with something. "You left it, I guess, when you were wearing this earlier." It was a refrigerator magnet, a souvenir created by Kevin and Jenny for their wedding guests, one gifted to each. "I thought you'd want to have it."

Kate wanted to laugh, but, for some reason, nothing came out.

"You drove all the way back here to bring me this? Now?"

Their eyes met, danced a dance, and it was only then she noticed the beads of sweat that speckled his forehead, the pink in his cheeks.

"No," Rick said and took a step across the threshold. "I ran."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Kate slowly loosened the vice-like grip she had on the handle and took a step backward. It required no small amount of effort on her part to uncurl her fingers when she did. That was how tightly she'd been clutching it.

Taking advantage of what he perceived a tacit gesture, Rick mirrored her movement, then reached out and pushed the door closed behind him without ever letting his eyes stray from hers. It was already off to the races, but that was the instant her heart began to pound like a bass drum.

Maybe it was a dream, she thought as she stood there gazing into his pools of blue. Maybe she'd come upstairs from the car with her dizzy mind and wobbly body and collapsed onto her bed, drifted off into the fantasy world she'd spent countless nights exploring in the past without either precondition.

There'd been so many nights. Maybe.

Except she could smell it floating across the handful of inches that separated them, the crisp air mingled with the ghost scents of a New York City day that'd woven into the fabric of the wool he wore, and a dream so vivid it could only emanate from the deepest depths of sleep would never permit such a profound sensory reaction. Kate read books. She knew her body. He was real.

"You ran?" She looked down at that silly magnet in her hand, the one in the likeness of the now-wedded couple. "I don't understand. Why would you…?"

When the towel unexpectedly slid from her shoulder to the floor, neither of them flinched.

"Okay, you got me. I guess I exaggerated. It was more of a jog than a run." Rick swallowed hard, knowing what was to come next. "See, I was at this wedding tonight, and I might've drunk a little, might've danced a little, might've kissed a beautiful woman a little. Now I'm in the clouds a little."

The bass drum quickly became a full symphony orchestra. Kate very much wished she still had something to hold on to to help keep her upright.

And he kept going.

"I had to come back. I was out there, on my way home, but you were in here. I realized I wasn't done wanting to look at you, so I made Philippe stop the car."

Imagining how it was she must've looked standing there with her dress hanging off of her, her makeup gone, and her hair tousled by restless fingers, she chuckled incredulously. "Yeah, well, I bet you're sorry you did now, Castle." She doubled down on the self-deprecation. "If I'd known, I could've gotten something stuck in my teeth and really made myself irresistible."

"Leave it," he told her when she bent to retrieve the towel because her nerves demanded she do something. She left it. "Now look at me." Her hesitation was both pronounced and expected. "Please, Beckett."

"Thanks for bringing this," she said of the rubber magnet. Stalling the inevitable was all it was, but she finally acquiesced because she knew he'd grant no other way.

"How could I ever be sorry? You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, as you are now or any other way. And I know you don't want me to say that. I know I'm not supposed to say that or that your lips taste like magic or that just smelling your perfume on my jacket brings me to my knees, but after what happened tonight, thinking those things and not saying them is too damned hard."

Twelve hours ago, Rick was asking her to fill the seat beside him in a pew at a wedding simply because he'd been ditched by his daughter and it might spare him some embarrassment. Now he was standing in her apartment in the middle of the night asking her for so much more, and, oh, she wanted to know how to be strong enough to give it to him.

"Castle…" Kate wasn't like him. Words weren't easy. She didn't often use them without consideration or deliberation, and vulnerable wasn't a color she wore without a fight. In fact, it was one she wanted nowhere near her closet. It'd been made so when she was 19 years old, when her mother had been ripped from her life, and while the compelled stoicism had proven advantageous, it had not been wholly to her betterment. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I think you do."

She lowered her head, whispered through clenched jaw. "I don't know."

He waited a beat, then another. "Right," he said and backed for the door, and when the look on his face flooded into her mind a vision of that day in the hospital when she'd knowingly lied about not remembering her shooting and what he'd confessed in its aftermath, the torrent only intensified the throbbing ache in her chest.

"Wait, Castle. Fuck." He didn't wait, but she did go after him, followed him out into the hallway, her bare feet shuffling behind. "Castle, stop, please. _Please_." They were cries of plea in but a whisper, the hour and those tucked away behind the other numbered doors her muzzle. She stopped when he finally did. "Don't go, not like this," she said when he came around.

"Not like this… but I should go, right?" He was understandably confused, his tone laced with a tinge of bite.

Kate dragged her fingers through her hair again, held it in fists at the back. "Will you just come back inside for a minute? Just… not out here, okay?"

His disillusionment was painfully familiar. She'd seen it before she'd dismissed him from her hospital room, cut him out of her life for months without a word. Only, now, it was even more difficult to swallow because she'd already surrendered part of herself to him that night, and that act had delivered her such pleasure.

Rick hadn't moved, but in hopes that he would, Kate stepped back against the wall so he could pass, which he did after some time, and, she noted, without even a glance.

"Okay, Beckett, I'm inside," he said when she closed the door behind her. "How do you want me to go this time?"

That stung.

She was on pins and needles but met his eye, as difficult as it was. Incredible, the shift: three minutes before it seemed as though there was nowhere else he wanted to be. Now it seemed he wanted to be anywhere but.

"Dammit, Castle, why did you have to make everything so fucking complicated?"

"Gee, I'm so glad I decided to come back," he deadpanned. "Is there anything else or was that the cherry?"

"Fuck it," Kate thought out loud and charged him, her body barreling into his with such force, they both nearly went down.

Before Rick was able to get out anything more than a grunt due to the impact, with their legs still unsure beneath them, her mouth covered his, and against its commands he put up no fight.

Without care of anything in their path, they thumped and bumped their way through the kitchen on some zigzag course she set for the sofa, the nearest horizontal surface of any amenity.

She was hot, and her tongue fiery. "Don't," she snapped when he accidentally knocked a decorative something-or-other off the coffee table and tried to pick it up. "It doesn't matter," she sighed against his lips, and it couldn't have had less to do with any bowl. "It doesn't matter." It came out twice. Maybe she was trying to convince herself.

Kate pushed him down onto the cushions, but sitting up, and able to watch the show as she hiked her dress up her thighs enough to allow her the generosity of movement to climb on after him, straddle one of his. Even with the depth of his gifted imagination, he hadn't fathomed that the moment he'd for so long hoped would come, the one that suddenly appeared to be upon him, could be that intoxicating. The effects of all the alcohol in the universe wouldn't have been able to equal the feeling.

His hands cradled her at the hips, their hold firm, selfish. It'd taken no time at all. Already, they never wanted to let her go.

When Kate's tongue met his and she tickled his lips with a moan, the muscles of the thigh she had clinched between the heat of her own stiffened in reflex. And that wasn't the only part of him. There was no hiding that. Pressed against him as she was, her hips rolling, she could only know what his body craved, and just how hungry it'd grown.

"Beckett," he pushed out in a breath. There was more, but her appeal intervened.

"Just kiss me, Castle. Don't stop." Urgent and electric, in wave after wave, he gave with equal fervor what she took. "Take me to the bed," she murmured into his ear when the titillation of his arousal became more than she could bear, when he had her so warm and wet, it could be the only elixir.

With a strength he wouldn't just moments before have imagined within his realm of possibility, Rick pulled himself up from the sofa with Kate wrapped in his arms and carried her into the bedroom-a room he'd never seen, let alone been ordered into.

They made it to the edge of the bed as one before her bare feet touched the floor again, her fingers already working at the buttons of his shirt as he peeled out of his jacket.

The darkness of the room didn't afford him the luxury of looking into her eyes, but he wished desperately he could. "Kate, is this…are you sure you want this?" he asked, and the only thing more terrifying to him than posing the question was her possible answer.

Kate rose up onto her toes, drew a hand across the skin of his newly exposed chest, and brought her lips to his. "I don't want to talk," she told him, so they didn't.

**xxxx**

It wasn't yet 7:00 a.m. that Sunday. Rick knew that by the red glow of the clock beside him on the nightstand, and he also wished he didn't.

He rolled onto his back, pressed his thumbs against his eyelids. They'd been gifted little sleep, and they were but one of many parts of his body already screaming in protest of that fact. He'd been awake less than a minute. It would be a long day ahead, he sensed.

He had no idea yet how long.

Perched on his elbows, he surveyed the room, and while the surroundings were still unfamiliar to him in the shadows of morning, he knew exactly where he was, and where he'd been. The curve of his lips testified to that. They also still tasted of her.

He'd lived one of the most remarkable nights of his life, with the woman he loved more than he had any other, and he would swear to anyone that the world on that morning was utterly changed, that it had forever shifted.

The door to the bathroom was closed, and he could hear the water of the shower running behind it. Kate hadn't woken him when she'd gotten up, either purposefully or accidentally, but he didn't give that much thought as he untangled his sleepy, naked body from the sheets and planted his feet on the floor.

He stepped around the corner of the bed, plucked his jacket from the floor, popped one of the mints he'd stashed in the pocket for the previous day's festivities, and pulled on his boxers. Opening the door that separated them, he stuck his head inside and called her name but received no reply.

"Beckett?" he tried again, louder. "Is it okay if I use the-?"

"Yeah," she answered but nothing more.

Rick stood at the sink afterward, chuckled as he washed his hands and splashed some water on his face.

"I hope I didn't get you with the flush. I've been frozen _and_ scalded before." He wasn't sure if he should approach the curtain or not, so he hung back. "You, um, you're up early. Sorry, I must've really been out. I didn't feel you get out of bed."

"I didn't want to wake you."

"I wish you had," he said and let quiet sit a moment before he went on. "Would you like some company in there? I can help you wash your back." When a response didn't come, he naturally assumed she mustn't have heard. "Kate?"

"I'll be out in a few minutes, Castle, okay?" she said.

With the chill that came over him, he longed even more to be standing beneath that hot water.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

A few minutes had never in Rick's life felt so long.

He sat at the end of Kate's bed in wait, surrounded by a deafening silence. The water for her shower had been off for eight minutes. He knew that because the only thing his mind could seem to do was count in loops of sixty, over and over and over, like some uncontrollable tic. The behavior would've fascinated him were it not so fucking agonizing.

He'd collected his shirt from the floor and slipped his arms into it in complement of his boxers, unintentionally neglected to fasten the buttons when the counting had started, and so they remained. When another cycle of seconds came to an end, he thought about getting up and knocking on the bathroom door, but the uneasiness he felt at present had hold of his muscles, so he could only continue to sit there and stare at it.

Another four minutes passed before he saw her again. She emerged wrapped up in a bathrobe, her wet hair pushed back away from her face by finger not comb, which, somehow, in his eyes, made it all the more alluring.

"Hey," she said, drove her hands into the robe's pockets. "I put out a towel if you want to-"

"I don't," Rick cut in. "I'd really just like to look at you."

After an interlude that could never have possibly stretched long enough for him, Kate gave voice to the discomfort he could see in her the whole time.

"I'm… this is embarrassing, Castle. Come on."

"I can't help it, not after last night. Now that I know all of you, it's going to be even harder for me to behave myself."

She wandered over to the dresser at the side of the room, pulled open a drawer but immediately closed it again without having taken anything out. "Well, try, Rick, okay?" she returned frostily.

Rick swallowed then spoke. "Have I done something to make you angry, Kate? Did I kick you in my sleep or steal all the covers or leave the seat up in the bathroom, because it suddenly seems like I must've. It feels like you fell asleep holding my hand, and now you're ready to slap it." When she threw him a look like his observation was nonsensical and without basis, he pressed. "Don't do that. Don't act like I don't know you, certainly not after everything that just happened."

"I'm not angry," she mumbled and leaned back against the dresser, diverted her eyes.

"Okay, then what are you, because I can count on one hand the number of times you've called me Rick, and I know that because that's how few times it's been." He took a breath, softened when she offered nothing. "I thought we'd wake up together this morning and make coffee, go out for waffles or a walk in the park or make love again. I just want to know what you're thinking, Beckett. Is that so much to ask?"

"You should go, Castle." She crossed back over to the doorway of the bathroom. "I can't do this."

Rick finally found his legs and got up from the bed, wearing half an outfit and the anger she'd denied. "I assume by _this_ you mean the waffles, because I'd be really confused if you could do to me what you did to me in your bed all night but you couldn't talk to me now."

Kate woke in the dark to the warmth of his body beside hers on that morning after that night, and he didn't move a muscle when she repositioned hers. She stayed there in the bed with him for a time, listened to his breaths come in and roll out, the gentle whistle his nose periodically played more sweet to her than silly, and for that brief collection of moments, she forgot all the rest. Or she tried to.

It never really left her. No matter how persuasive the instrument of escape-and Rick's body, she now knew, was an enticement unmatched-it never seemed to be enough to suffocate the fear. The fear was what had her up and out of that bed before she could inflict any further damage, before what she wanted clouded her mind again to what it was she believed she could actually have.

"I don't want to fight with you, Castle."

"How about you tell me what it is you _do _want, Beckett. I've already spent four years listening to the other list."

Kate clamped down on the insides of her cheeks. She truly didn't want to fight. She could barely look at him as it was.

"I want you to go."

Rick took a step in her direction but thought better of it and stopped. "Jesus Christ, Kate, why are you so afraid of me? Why are you so afraid to let me love you?" The expression on her face didn't read surprise. "Yeah, I kind of figured you already knew that. Guess all that stuff at Montgomery's funeral about having someone to stand with you meant only if that someone doesn't tell you something you don't want to hear. Well, guess what, Kate? You don't get to decide how I feel, anymore, or when I feel it. I know what happened in this room last night."

"You know what? Fuck you, Rick."

"Fuck me?"

"Yes. Yes, dammit, I just need time to think. Why won't you just give me that, please?"

Rick bent down, grabbed his pants from the floor and stepped into them, slipped on his shoes without his socks. "Oh, you mean you're asking this time? You're not just going to disappear for three months? How thoughtful of you."

His shirt was still open, but he threw on his jacket over it, just the same, walked past her to the bedroom door but turned back. "You know, I stopped having to think about it a long time ago, Kate. Loving you is like oxygen for me now. I just breathe it, every second of every day. You know damn well what that's like. You're just too afraid to admit it."

And then he was gone, which was what she asked for, what she wanted. Except that it wasn't.

**xxxx**

Rick walked the first ten blocks from Kate's place, near froze with his socks balled up in his pocket and his shirt still unbuttoned to half before he surrendered to the elements and hailed a cab for the remainder of the trip home. It was just lucky for him he could use plastic to pay for it. He'd gladly given all his cash to Philippe the night before to get Kate home.

"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Shame making the walk through his front door this morning," Martha cracked just as he crossed the loft's threshold and shut the door. "And looking a bit worse for wear, I must say. Someone must've had a good time last night."

He pocketed his keys, his fingers grazing the magnet he too had been gifted by the wedded couple. He thought only of Kate, how he stumbled upon hers when he stormed out of her apartment earlier and nearly kicked it across the floor, obviously dropped there on their clumsy quest for the sofa.

Not that he'd been thinking of anything else, or rarely ever did, for that matter. Even after the bloody scene they'd created that morning, after what was said, that wouldn't change. He wasn't a fool. That wasn't how love worked.

Her perfume was still clinging to his lapels. He could smell it standing there. Or maybe it was just so much more a part of him now, he only thought he could. Either way, he was carrying her with him, for better or for worse.

"It was fun, Mother, yeah," he replied in contrary to his flat affect, which suggested it'd been about as fun as a visit to the dentist. "The Ryans threw a good party."

"I'm glad to hear that, darling. I'm just sorry I couldn't step in for Alexis."

"That makes one of us," Rick mumbled coming into the kitchen. "Is she up yet?"

"Alexis had her own night, darling, and though it doesn't usually seem it, her birth certificate does verify she is a teenager." He eyed her like the long version was the reason for his exhaustion. "Sleeping in," she abbreviated.

He opened the fridge, grabbed the carton of orange juice, and unapologetically poured it straight down his throat. In that moment, it tasted like he imagined the tears of angels would: light-years better than the sourness sitting on his tongue.

"I need a shower and about a week of sleep. I'll see you, Mother." He set the carton on the counter and turned to go, but Martha wasn't done with him yet.

"I ask this purely out of curiosity, Richard, and maybe a teensy bit out of motherly hope. Did we happen to make our way home this morning, by any chance, from Katherine's place?"

That was not a conversation he was prepared to have, with her or anyone else.

"I crashed on Esposito's couch, if you must know, Mother, not that it's any of your business."

She returned the glare he'd given her a moment before, and then some. "Better make it a week and a half of sleep, kiddo. Who knew fun could turn you into such a grump?"

Fun, he thought as he walked away. Nowhere fucking near.

**xxxx**

Kate got up out of the chair again-her fourth time-and began to pace her familiar line. Burke let her recount all of it without his commentary, merely watched and listened with the look on his face of a man who had the answer to the problem from the beginning but who had no intention of sharing it with the rest of the class. It infuriated her, that way he always had.

"Just so you know, I'm going to be sending you the bill if I have to have the carpet replaced," he said humorously, his first words in some time. Kate paused her monotonous course, came around. "Have you called him since that morning, Kate? Tried to reach out?"

"And say what? Does Hallmark make a card for 'Sorry I jumped you then told you to fuck off and get out of my apartment'?"

It took a second or two, but Burke's brow settled back into place.

"Are you sorry?"

"I don't want to keep doing this." She tucked her hair behind her ears, swallowed deliberately to try to mitigate the burn she felt rising in her throat. "How do… Why the hell can I tell you I love him, but I can't say it to him? I don't want him to go, but I keep pushing him away."

"Rick told you why, Kate. Fighting for justice is brave. You do that every day, and you don't question it. Fighting for happiness is brave, too, so is fighting for love, and you _can_ do all of those at once. It doesn't have to be either/or. You have that power. You just have to believe you can use it."

She parked herself in front of him once more. "Castle is the best thing that's ever happened to my life," she said through a crack in her voice.

"So you've told me, even without ever telling me." Kate looked up, met his eye. "Now tell me what you're thinking, Kate. Tell me what you're feeling."

"Tired. Scared. Angry with myself." She trailed off.

"I thought so." He knew it was there. "What's it like living under all that pressure all the time? What's it like trying to control everything you think and feel?"

Kate shook her head, pushed out a hint of a chuckle. "It's fucking awful."

"A lot of the anger we feel stems from frustration, because we can't control everything we think and feel. That's not how the game works. I'm sorry to have to break it to you."

"You're not sorry," she charged, narrowing her eyes.

Burke glanced at his watch and folded his notepad closed. "I don't tell people what to do in here, Kate. It's been my experience that most people already know what they want to do. I just try to help remind people they can when they've forgotten. People like you."

Kate tucked her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, balled them into fists.

"Thanks for making time," she said.

Now she had to make a decision.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Kate made her way to the precinct after leaving Burke's office, decided not to stop to pick up a coffee en route in hopes the new day would bring Rick's return, and with him, as he always did, a cup in hand for her. It might well have been the hope of a fool. She realized that. But they'd come through the darkness of difficult days before, and her morning session had bequeathed a smidgen of stillness, which was nothing near how she'd gone into it. She knew she had to hold on to it for dear life.

She stepped off the elevator and into the bullpen at the 12th, found Rick's chair beside her desk as yet unoccupied, but, given the hour, that wasn't altogether unusual for him. Or so she tried to tell herself. She kicked her day bag under her desk, made her way into the break room to fill up her water bottle, shunning the coffee pot there and the whisper of its sweet nothings.

They were all still there. She could see them through the open dashes of the blinds that hung across the glass in front of her. The puzzle pieces that made up the case she hadn't yet been able to close were scribbled and pinned up on her murder board across the way. A twist in her gut caused her to wince. As she stood there in that moment, she was both a personal and professional failure. One had a mightier bite than the other. It wasn't the one she expected; never had it been that way.

"Hey," Javi said over her shoulder, taking her by surprise. "You all right, partner?"

"I'm… yeah," she replied as if offended someone would dare ask. For Kate that was a customary play. "Is Ryan in yet?"

With his hip, he bumped her out of his path to the caffeine. Their lips curled synchronously.

"Yeah, he's in. He had to go call Jenny about something. Can you believe that shit? He left her five minutes ago and he's already calling." He poured his second mugful, spilled some of it in his miff. "Remind me never to get married."

"Aww, Jav, don't be jealous. You'll find someone. Maybe a date that isn't your cousin might be a good start."

"You're not funny, you know that?" He set his mug down to tend to the mess. "So, you know the fox who's in with the boss this morning? I've never seen her before. I'd definitely remember."

Kate's eye hadn't made it beyond the tangle of the murder board, but she rectified that with his cue. "I don't think so. She doesn't look familiar. How long has she been in there?"

"No idea. She was already here when I showed up. I haven't seen Gates show her fangs once. Must be friends or somethin'."

A crinkle of curiosity hung between Kate's brows. "Yeah, maybe," she said. "I'm going to finish with Anselmo's phone records, get you guys some more numbers to do a dive on. Go find Ryan. Tell him to get the dirty talk out of my house and save it for the honeymoon. He has work to do."

"Gross," Javi grumbled. "Hey, is Castle comin' in today?" he asked as she reached the door.

She paused, inhaled a breath. "Guess we'll find out," she said without looking back.

Not thirty minutes later, Captain Gates popped her head out of her office. "Detective Beckett, may I see you in here, please?"

When she dipped back inside, Javi's and Kevin's heads both snapped in Kate's direction and remained as she got up from her desk and made her way their direction.

"What's that about?" Kevin said.

"Yeah, how come you always get the cool party invites?" Javi added, helping himself to another unabashed gaze at the precinct's visitor. "Hey, Beckett, find out if she's wearing a ring."

Kate scowled. "You're a detective, Espo. Detect. I'm not your matchmaker. God help me if I was."

Javi tossed his pen at Kevin when he snickered, then snipped at Kate. "Cranky, cranky. Look what happens when Castle doesn't show up with your morning coffee."

She clenched her jaw and went inside.

The woman seated opposite her captain stood up, turned. Her beauty was striking, exotic in a way that somehow made her feel more accessible, not less, which struck Kate out of the ordinary. In her heels, she stood taller than Kate-who'd opted for boots that day-her navy suit evidence of both fine taste and a healthy bank account.

"Good morning, sir."

"Detective, I'd like you to meet Sophia Turner. She's an ASAC with the FBI." Kate reached for the hand the agent offered in greeting, her instinct, for a reason she didn't yet have, flipping an internal switch to defensive mode straightaway. "Have a seat."

"I'm sorry, but what's this about, sir? I really need to get back to-"

"Detective Beckett," Sophia jumped in, "I understand you've been the lead on the Anselmo case. I'm here this morning because that case is now an FBI matter, and I'm going to need everything you've collected to date through your investigation."

Kate's eyes shifted to her boss, who shrugged with her own.

"I don't understand."

"No, you don't," Sophia said. "And you don't need to. I've filled in Captain Gates on everything she needs to know. What she chooses to share at a later time will be left up to her. Right now, I need you to gather what you have so my team can move forward immediately. Time is of the essence, and your cooperation is expected and appreciated."

Suddenly, Kate was thankful she hadn't yet had coffee. If she had, she might've used the boost of energy to haul off and relieve the agent of her smug bullshit.

"Is this for real?" she asked her silent superior.

"I'm afraid it is. Have Detective Ryan and Detective Esposito help you pull everything together, so Agent Turner can be on her way." Javi might not have seen any fangs, but Kate certainly heard them in her captain's tone. "Get going, please, Beckett."

Kate did as ordered by the only woman in the room she would've taken the order from, marched out without another word, and all but slammed the door shut behind her.

"Yo, what was that?" Javi and Kevin both jumped up from behind their desks and chased behind to hers. "Your face is turning purple. What the hell happened in there?"

"She's taking our fucking case is what happened."

"What? What case? How can she do that?" Kevin asked.

"The fox is taking it? Who the hell is she?" Javi piled on.

Kate picked up all the piles of paper on her desk, one by one, and slammed them down into one large stack. "She's FBI. She's here for everything on Anselmo. I need everything you both have. Now."

"They're just taking over? What did she say? We've been sweating over this thing for days. I swear we were just about-"

"It doesn't matter, Espo. None of it matters. Just go clear your desks so we can get her the hell out of here."

The two walked off, and Kate just stood there with the pile of her effort under her fist, staring at Rick's chair without him in it. He would've said something. He would've done something to lessen the sting of it. That's what he did. That's what she chased away, one of the few things in her life she could count on to make things better.

**xxxx**

Kate was left to her own devices for most of the day in the wake of its unforeseen and unwelcome turn of events, and though the grant wasn't something she petitioned for, it suited her just fine.

It was another come and gone without an appearance by Rick, as well, and that was its toughest pill for her to swallow. Again, he didn't reach out or leave word. Not a peep. Nearly three days it'd been since she'd urged him into her bed, and she'd begun to realize, in the hours without him since she'd left Burke's office, that if they were going to be able to get past the ugliness of what'd followed, she was going to have to be the one to take that first daunting step out onto the ledge.

Her captain was seated in Rick's chair when the clouds of Kate's reverie finally parted. She didn't know how long she'd been there, but the expression coming back at her, thankfully, didn't signal she had reason for concern.

"Sir?" Kate said, unaccustomed to finding her there for any reason.

"I know what happened this morning was difficult for you, Detective. I assure you I was given no notice by Agent Turner or by anyone else at the Bureau. Had I been, you would've been the first to know. I don't like my people being blindsided, and I know you put in some fine work on that case."

"I appreciate that, sir. Not that it makes it any easier, but I guess I just have to try to look at it like we're all on the same team." Kate leaned back in her chair. "Having said that, I hope Turner left here with all my fine work in her hand and walked into the side of a bus."

The women shared a smile.

"Speaking of team, I haven't seen the pain in my ass around here for a couple of days. Dare I hope Mr. Castle has finally taken my hint?" she teased, mostly. When Kate neither seemed to find the attempt at humor amusing nor offered a reply, it struck. "I'm not trying to pry here, but is everything all right, Detective Beckett? Kate?" she had to press further.

"Sorry, um… everything's fine. It's just been a really long day."

"Well, why don't you get out of here. Go home, try to shake it off."

Kate reached under her desk for her bag. "I will, sir, thanks."

It was also going to be a long night, though. She'd called Lanie earlier, invited her over for wine and an ear. In a couple of hours, she, too, would know about what'd happened with Rick, and Kate's stomach was rolling because of it.

**xxxx**

Lanie held out her empty glass of cabernet, waited for Kate to pour her a second as they stood together in the kitchen. "So, are you going to tell me what I'm doing here or what? You said you needed to talk, but I feel like I'm the one that's been doing all the talking. What's up with you?"

Kate finished the pour, brought the bottle to her lips and tipped it back. "I have to tell you something," she said, wiping a ruby-colored drop from her chin.

"I guess so. And that's your bottle now, by the way."

"I did something, Lanie."

A look of guarded curiosity came over her best friend's face. "Okay, now you're kind of freakin' me out. Should I be sitting down for this?"

Kate could swear she felt the floor begin to ripple under her feet. She set the bottle aside, wrapped the fingers of both hands around the edge of the kitchen island, and took a deep breath.

"Castle and I made out at the wedding reception." Apparently, her brain decided it was taking baby steps. "There was a place, a thing outside by the woods with these lights and grass, and we were out there and that happened."

"Jesus, girl, I'm glad Castle's a writer and knows how to tell a story, because you suck at it. 'There was a place and that happened?' I mean, what's the matter with you? A girlfriend needs _de_-tails. I mean, were there hands wandering? Were there tongues-"

Kate jumped all over her words. "Then you did that obnoxious thing you did and made him bring me home." She stopped there, but Lanie could clearly tell there was more.

"Oh, you are not getting any apology from me," she said and downed a sip of wine. "So, he brought you home. _And?_"

"And then he left."

Lanie pursed her lips. "How juicy," she quipped.

"But then he came back."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yeah," Kate said, the inflection in her reply suggesting a lit fuse on a countdown to blow. "We slept together, Lanie, and there was very little sleep."

Lanie calmly placed her glass on the island, reached across it, grabbed the bottle by the neck, and proceeded to chug.

"Now this is more like it," she bubbled. "You better open the other one, and then get your skinny ass over to that sofa and sit, because we are going to be here for a while."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

If Lanie's throat hadn't been properly lubricated by the wine, her awe at the impossible triumph that'd just been shared surely would've gotten caught up there.

"You had how many now?" She threw up a hand. "Okay, girl, I have seen my share of nights, but as a woman of science, I am telling you that does not even seem physically possible."

Kate's eyes slid shut as she recalled just how possible it was, how certain it'd been.

"Lanie, it was beyond. Never in my life have I ever experienced anything like him, and I don't know if it was the whole wedding mood over the day or the champagne, or-"

Lanie guffawed.

"Just who in the hell do you think you're talking to here? Stop your mouth movin' and listen. You're my best girl, so that means I can tell it to you this way: It was _love_, you idiot. It always has been. You just pretend it isn't because heaven forbid Kate Beckett isn't in control of something. Heaven forbid something good happens to you when you're supposed to be living the rest of your life in mourning."

Kate's brow dipped. "It hasn't been always," she countered flimsily. "And I'm not living in mourning."

"Is that right? Then where are you living, Kate, because you have a man who's been ready and willing to give you all the love in the world, a man who's been right beside you for years just waiting, and you've had your foot on the I'm-not-allowed-to-be-happy-yet brake since he jumped in front of your car."

"It's not that easy, Lanie. My mom's murder is like this huge mountain at my feet, and I keep trying to climb it, but it just keeps getting taller. I need to figure out a way to get over that mountain and put it behind me. I need to."

Lanie set her glass on the coffee table and then her hand on Kate's leg. "I'm sorry, Kate, but your mom's murder will never be behind you. You're always going to carry it. It won't matter if you personally find a way to bury every single bastard that was involved, because she was your mother. At what point do you get to be the one who gets to decide what happens in your life, huh? Not everyone finds love, but it found you, Kate, and you deserve it more than anyone I know."

Kate pressed the blur of tears from her eyes, let her head drop back against the top of the sofa cushion.

"Fuck, Lanie, I practically shoved him out the door the next morning. Worse than that. It was awful. _I _was awful. I haven't heard from him since."

"You're just scared, Kate. Everyone's scared of love, because everyone knows there's always a chance it might not be there tomorrow. Castle's been there for every tomorrow so far."

Kate picked up her head, narrowed her eyes. "Except that summer he went to the Hamptons with his ex."

"And you had absolutely nothing to do with that, right?" Lanie came right back.

"I'm just saying."

"Well, how about you stop saying and hear me. I guarantee it's going to be a thousand times harder to keep trying not to love Castle than it will be to let yourself love him, especially after what happened. Going back after that with all you have between you just won't happen, so you need to think long and hard about who and what is in charge of you, and about what you are and aren't willing to let go of."

Kate reached down and took Lanie's hand. "I really am an idiot. Why the hell am I paying a therapist when I have you?" She gently squeezed. "Thank you for always telling me things I need to hear."

"Oh please, you hate it and you know it, you liar. But I love you, girl."

"I love you, too," Kate said.

**xxxx**

"You're shiny and bright very early this morning, kiddo," Martha said to Rick when she came down the loft's stairs to find him already showered, dressed, and preparing the morning coffee on that Thursday. "That's usually my job."

He glanced over his shoulder, hit her with a playful jab to kick-start the day. "Yes it is, Mother, which is why I usually go out and buy mine."

Walking up behind him, she flicked him on the shoulder then left a comforting peck at the very spot. "Funny jokes. Always such funny jokes," she said and hooked the mug he'd set out for her, cupped it in her palms in wait of the brew. "Did Beckett call about a new murder or are you off on the same case?"

Rick did his best to avoid her eye. "Um, no, it's still the same one, but I'm actually going to meet an old friend for coffee before I head to the precinct. I just figured I'd get this started for you, out of the goodness of my heart." He turned his wrist, looked at his watch. "I really should get going. I'm sure she has to be at work, also, and I don't want to be late. This'll be done in a minute, Mother."

He made it only a couple of steps.

"_She? _And do I know this old friend you're meeting for coffee?"

"You know, you're very nosy," he said and continued on his way.

"Must be where you got it from, darling. I'll be teaching a class this afternoon until 5:30 p.m. Will I see you later?"

Rick stopped at the front door, slid on his jacket. "Have you seriously convinced people to pay you money for acting lessons, Mother?"

Martha waved him off with a flutter of her hand. "On second thought, maybe I don't wanna see ya," she teased, and he went, thus bringing to a close yet another acting performance of his own.

A small collection of city blocks later, he arrived at a café most familiar to him, but one he hadn't visited in years, not since the coffee companion he now anticipated had last done so together.

She'd phoned him a couple of days prior, and completely out of the blue-more than that, really. They hadn't parted on the best of terms, and despite his subsequent efforts to rectify that, to bring their not uncomplicated relationship to a more amicable sign-off, she'd turned her back on him.

What he couldn't quite find his way past was the timing of the call. With what'd happened with Kate, all of a sudden, now, there she was again… literally.

"Hello, Rick," the statuesque brunette said, everything about her soft as she stood there in front of him after so long, not at all the way he'd last experienced her.

"As beautiful as you always were, Sophia." He kissed her on the cheek, pulled out a chair for her at the table by the window he'd secured for the two. "I ordered you a tea with lemon," he said pointing out what she could already see, "but if you prefer something else-"

She smiled, set her bag on the floor, and slipped out of her coat. "Tea is perfect, Rick, thank you. It's nice that you remembered." They both sat. "I just got here. You already seem nervous. Why is that?"

She always could read him.

"Well, it's not every day that a person gets a message from the CIA asking to meet. Are we being surveilled?" Rick asked with a stiff giggle-and mostly because it could be true.

Sophia tended to her tea, prepared it to her liking. "I'm not with the CIA, anymore, Rick. I'm with the Bureau now. Does that help any?"

"You always were a show-off, and, no, not really." He gulped his too-hot coffee, labored to mask the resulting added layer of discomfort. "Why the team change?"

"I bore easily. That's why I liked you so much. You kept me on my toes."

Their eyes met. He looked away first.

"I'm sorry, Sophia," he began into a thoughtful pause, "please don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not glad to see you. I am, but the way everything went down and then nothing for so long. It just feels strange that you suddenly reached out after all this time, that's all. I'm a little bit thrown."

"You're suspicious," she returned with a grin that evidenced her enjoyment in what he was. "You've been spending too much time with the NYPD." His face read surprised. "Yes, I see things, and I know things."

She brought her cup to her lips, but didn't sample, almost as if trying to veil her vulnerability. "I was hurt back then, Rick. I know you thought I was being cold. It's never easy to want something the other person doesn't. You have crossed my mind a lot since then, though. I called because I finally decided to do something about it."

She'd wanted something he hadn't. It would've been funny, him sitting there now in the very boat she'd been in back then, if it wasn't so goddamned unfunny.

"It isn't easy," Rick commented under his breath, fidgeting with his spoon.

"Speaking of the NYPD, tell me about your Nikki Heat. You gave her her own series. I can't say I haven't feel a twinge or two of envy. Given the success of the books, she must be an incredible woman."

Cue performance: Act II.

"Um, yeah, Detective Beckett's been a great resource, really dedicated to the work and-"

Sophia sensed his dance and interjected. "And beautiful."

Without considering her contribution, Rick immediately put himself on defense. "Well, yes, I guess she is beautiful, but that's not why I chose her."

She eyed him over her cup's rim. "I met her the other day. She doesn't like me very much." She could see it in all of him. A feather could've knocked him over.

"You… wait. You met Beckett? Where? Why?"

"My team at the Bureau took over her case. I broke the news."

"Which case?" Rick asked, though the answer couldn't possibly have been less important to him.

"I'll let her tell you," she replied somewhat cooled. And then, without a beat, "Is she a great resource for more than just cases, Rick?"

All at once, it felt like he'd been shot from a cannon, like his body was hurtling through the air and he had no idea what was up and what was down.

"This is why you called." It wasn't the first game she'd played. "What do you want, Sophia?"

"I suppose the coincidence did play a part, but I could've left it, Rick, and the only thing I wanted was to see you again." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, noted the time. "I have to get to work. Let's have dinner later, catch up properly."

Rick stood when she did, but he didn't remember telling his legs to do it.

"I guess so, yeah."

Sophia was the one to kiss him on the cheek. "How's 6:30 p.m. at Raoul's? We always liked it there. The short notice won't be a problem. I have a friend that can get us a table."

He took out his phone when she left, opened the list of voicemail messages he had saved, and hit the button to play Kate's, as he'd done at least half a dozen times since she'd left it the night before.

_I know what I said, but there's more. I wish you were here. _

He tucked the phone away again and walked out of the café. He didn't have a clue where he was going.

**xxxx**

The knock at the door wasn't one Martha was expecting, nor one she was suitably dressed for, but with Rick and Alexis both out for the evening, she tended to it, nonetheless.

"Katherine, hello," she said, cinching tighter the loops of her robe's sash. "This is a lovely surprise. Come in, come in."

"Hi, Martha, thanks. I hope I didn't get you out of bed. I'm sorry. I know it's late."

"Don't be silly, darling." Martha set a hand at Kate's back, ushered her inside. "You didn't at all, no. I was just reading over a script. Besides, you know you're welcome here anytime. I must tell you, though, if you're meeting Richard, he isn't back from dinner, yet."

That might've been the first moment Kate had taken a full breath since she'd knocked.

"Oh, no, actually, Castle didn't know I was coming. I just… I just stopped by on my way home from the precinct."

Martha detected something in her that, quite frankly, didn't require much detection. "Let's share some tea, the two of us. Follow me," she said and led Kate on toward the kitchen. "Sit. Richard mentioned this morning you two were still working on that same case from last week. It must be a doozy. Is chamomile all right?" Kate nodded. "I'm sure my son's fanciful theories have been as helpful as ever," she gibed.

On top of everything Kate already was, she could now add confused to the list. She was talking about the case as though Rick had been at the precinct working it all week, which he hadn't, but she quickly decided she wasn't going to be the one to tell her otherwise.

"Fanciful is a nicer word for them than mine," Kate replied and the women had a chuckle. "How are you, Martha? Are you still having nightmares after what happened that day at the bank? I know how difficult those can be to shake."

"You're very thoughtful to ask, Katherine. Thankfully they've gone, mostly." She pulled the kettle from the stove, poured a mug of water for each of them. "Now and again they creep back in, but I can't imagine they're anywhere near what you must've gone through."

"I still do, sometimes, but I'm working with someone-"

The front door opening cut short Kate's admission, one she hadn't ever shared. It was Rick, and he wasn't alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

If there'd been a contest to determine which of the two, Rick or Kate, was more surprised at the sight that greeted them, the result would surely have been a draw. That she would be sitting in his apartment and that he would be on the arm of another woman were guesses neither would've made if they'd been asked where they thought the other might be at that moment. Nevertheless, there they were, the only two of the four in the room who truly understood how odd a turn the night had just taken.

"Speak of the devil and he appears." Martha tapped Kate on the arm. "Look who stopped by, Richard," she called out, like Kate's light didn't blind him when he came through the door, like she wasn't the only thing he could see. "Oh, my," trickled out of her then, when she realized who it was her son ushered in with him, and Kate heard it. Suddenly she knew Martha knew far more than she.

"Hello, Martha," Sophia spoke first. "It's nice to see you again." She turned her attention to Kate as Rick stepped up beside her. "Detective Beckett, it's nice to see you, too." There was pleasure in her voice, and it rang a loud warning bell in his head.

Kate didn't have the first clue what to say. It would've been awkward enough had Rick returned home alone, but that he was with a woman she knew only as an agent of the FBI, one who'd briefly and unfortunately crossed her professional path days ago, only served to thicken the fog she found herself lost in.

Martha glanced over at Kate, noted her expression, the fresh pale of her skin. "Well, yes, Sophia, it's been quite a long time. Richard didn't tell me it was you he was meeting." Rick earned his own look. _Do something _it said.

"Beckett, I'm-what're you doing here?" he chimed in, finally.

Funny, twenty minutes ago, Kate didn't think she could have less of an idea what she was doing there.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to go." She pushed off her chair at the bar. Martha grabbed her hand and squeezed, gave a subtle shake of her head as if to tell her not to. "Thank you for-thank you, Martha." She headed straight for the door. Neither she nor anyone else uttered a word.

Kate let the door close behind her, hard, and heard it open again after she took just a few steps.

"Beckett." She stopped with Rick's voice, but didn't turn when he approached. "I'm sure that was uncomfortable. Sophia told me you two-"

That brought her right around and their eyes together. "First that woman shows up at my precinct and walks out with my case, and now you're out on some dinner date with her? Gee, Castle, what could possibly be uncomfortable about that?"

Apparently, they were going to do this. And now they were both switched on.

"Okay, I didn't know anything about the case thing until she told me this morning, and you have no idea what we were out on. Besides, what do you care?" Kate bit at the inside of her cheek. "You didn't answer me. What are you doing here? Are you here to pretend nothing happened again or did you just drop by to share your list of reasons why what _definitely_ happened was a mistake?"

"How do you even know her, Castle?" The jab to the gut stung, but she wanted to steer. "And what do you mean 'this morning'? What, are you two having, like, all your meals together now? Did she try to steal the bacon from your plate?"

Rick nearly smiled, but managed to suppress it. "I see what this is. You don't want my bacon, but no one else is allowed to have it either, right?"

"You're such a jackass." She caught her eyes drifting toward his lips and felt a twitch when they landed. "I don't know what the hell's going on here, Castle, but if Agent Turner wants your bacon or your sausage or any other part of you, she can just help herself. I'm leaving," she barked and spun away.

He granted her a lead but followed, met her at the elevator before she had a chance to press the button to call it. "Yeah, well, don't let me stop you," he needled.

"Shut up, Castle."

"Oh, one more thing before you go, Detective." In one swift move, Rick pulled her around by the sleeve of her jacket, backed her into the elevator door, which rattled from the impact, and kissed her hotly.

Not two seconds and Kate's mouth melted into his, her legs turning to jelly beneath her. Her fingers clutched in fists the fabric of his shirt, the only thing keeping her vertical when his tongue brushed against hers and a shared moan danced between them.

And then, just like that, it was over, and he was walking away.

"You shut up," she heard him sneer, and she licked him from her lips.

**xxxx**

"Sweet Jesus, you two are like a bad soap opera," Lanie sighed into the phone. Kate called her on the way to work the next morning, accidentally woke her on a day off, so she was grouchy from word one. "Am I gonna have to get involved here, because I will get involved and you will not like it."

"It's crazy, right? I mean, this Agent Whoever pops up out of nowhere and, in the same week, ends up with my case and my…"

"And your what?" It was the first smile Kate had heard. "Say it, girl. Let me hear it."

"And my writer." She did it on purpose, of course. "And then he kisses me and walks away. He just strolls right away like he didn't do anything at all. What's that about?"

There was only silence. That was until Lanie shouted, forcing Kate to jerk the phone away from her ear in the middle of the crowded sidewalk.

"You're kidding me, right? You're asking me, at 7-damn o'clock on my day off, what that's about, after you screwed the guy's brains out all night long and then threw him out your door? No. I think you need to be asking yourself what _that's _about."

Kate pushed through the lobby door at the 12th, headed for the stairs rather than the elevator, where a couple of others were already waiting.

"Who the hell else am I going to call, Lanie? You're the only one that knows, besides my therapist."

"And don't even get me started on that. Look, you want to know what I think? Here it is, then I'm hanging up on you so I can try to get Idris Elba back into the dream my girl barged in on. No matter what happened when you got there last night, you went to Castle's for a reason. Obviously, you have something to say and you haven't said it yet. So, you call. You tell him you want to meet or whatever. You say it. Period. That woman, whoever she is, has nothing to do with you or your business with him."

Kate stopped at the 4th floor landing. "Thank you. Tell Idris I say hi."

"Like I'm gonna be talking," Lanie cracked and disappeared from the line.

As Kate crossed the bullpen and neared her desk, she noticed it sitting there and immediately scanned the room. It was the first cup of morning coffee she'd seen there in a week, but Rick was nowhere in sight.

"Espo," she called across the room. "Hey, morning, did you-is this from you?" She set her bag down, pulled her phone out of it, and then kicked it under her desk, as always.

"Not me," he answered like he'd been accused of something. "Castle left it. You didn't see him when you came up? He just went down in the elevator."

"I took the stairs." The disappointment came out of her too softly for him to hear.

Javi got up and came over. "He was only here five minutes. Slacker," he said under his breath. "Guess he's been doing the book thing all week, not that we need his ass here. Rich boy's on his way to the Hamptons to do some rich boy shit, I don't know. Whatever." He pivoted to return to his desk, but remembered something. "Oh, he told me to tell you to look underneath. I was gonna, but you showed up too quick."

"Nice. Go pretend to do something, would ya? You're flying solo next week with Ryan out on his honeymoon, so don't get used to it."

"Yeah, girl, you watch. I'll get ten times more done without Ryan and his constant wife-calling ass around."

Kate rolled out her chair and sat, wrapped her hands around the warm cup, reveled in the sensation and knowing that Rick had been there to deliver it. After a moment, she lifted it off the desk and found a small square of paper folded beneath. With a quick scan for prying eyes, she opened it.

_I wish you were here, _the note in his handwriting read, and she recognized instantly why he'd chosen those words.

It didn't take long for her to decide what she was going to do about it, either, but she checked her watch, and that call would have to wait a little while.

**xxxx**

She hadn't ridden in a few months and the bike was a mess, but with the short notice, the Harley afforded Kate the best and easiest option for getting out there.

Rick didn't know of her plan and, to be honest, she had no real plan beyond getting from point A to point B. Thanks to Javi, she knew where he'd be. Thanks to Martha, she had the address. Maybe it would be a mistake. Maybe she'd end up regretting it, but that was something she couldn't know without doing it. Besides, she figured if she didn't do something, Lanie was probably going to stop taking her calls.

Though she was up and anxious before the Saturday sunrise, she sat and drank down three cups of coffee-which she knew the consequences of yet kept pouring in spite of-showered and dressed in her customary riding black, including, she recalled with a wicked tick of a grin, the leather pants she'd once taunted Rick with, and then set out into the chill.

It was a trip of nearly three hours by the time she pulled into the driveway that led to a home of enormous size and, at least from its exterior, impeccable seaside charm. There were no cars that she could see, but with multiple garage bays, she couldn't know for sure whether or not Rick was there.

She pulled up close to a back door and kicked the bike in place, lifted off her helmet to hair still damp from her shower, and hung it from one of the handlebars. On the ring with her bike key was a gift he'd once given her for no particular occasion at all. She'd suspected he might be trying to butter her up for some Nikki Heat thing she'd undoubtedly refuse, but she'd been wrong. It'd come with no strings.

It was a charm in the shape of a book, a symbol, he'd told her, of their partnership, its cover open and pages turned; part of their story behind them but much more to come. She didn't ride a lot, and, as such, didn't often find it in her hand, didn't often enough appreciate it for what it was and remained, but it struck her, there, now, more meaningful than it'd ever been.

Kate unzipped her leather jacket and inhaled a welcome breath of non-city air. Almost like a fairy godmother swirled a magic wand over her, she felt the tingle of it in her lungs. The only thing left was the door, which she stepped up to and rang the bell for.

In the ghost of its echo she waited, gave it a second push when no one appeared, but to the same result. That was, naturally, a conceivable outcome of a nonexistent invitation. So she sat.

She sat for hours.

It wasn't until the sky had drifted from blue to pink to black that headlights appeared in her view. She pushed herself up, her muscles and bones objecting to the jolt, and watched the car pull around the circle and turn off.

A light had come on above her head at some point. She'd assumed she must've dozed off, because she hadn't remembered it, but beneath its glow, she couldn't see, beyond the outline of a body, who it was walking toward her.

But she did know the voice.

"Beckett?" Rick said. "Oh my god."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Rick took a step closer, and with it a shadow settled across his face. He'd already expressed his shock over finding her there, and Kate was able to make out that the look on his face certainly seemed to match his words, but the disservice of night's curtain prevented her from reading any deeper, from immediately recognizing whether or not he found it a welcome or an unwelcome one, and absent that verdict, the knot in her belly twisted once more.

"Hey, Castle," she said, the kinks in her muscles still settling from her most significant exercise of them in a long while, and her nonchalance was almost comical, as if she didn't just ride her motorcycle hours from the city in the cold and then spend even more of them camped out alone on his front steps with no comforts at all.

"This all feels a bit like _Groundhog Day _to me,Beckett. What are you doing here?" He saw the Harley when he pulled his car around, but it didn't really register until that very second. "And you rode that thingall the way out here?"

Kate stuffed her chilled hands into her jacket pockets. "Well, you always said you wanted to see it."

"Okay, kudos on the funny, but, seriously, can you please-" Rick abruptly cut himself off, pulled out his house keys. "First we need to go inside, because we just need to go inside." His fluster tickled her. There was no one better at that trick. "Jesus, you must be freezing." He unlocked the back door and showed her in, flipped on the entryway light. "I'd offer to take your jacket, but I'm afraid the heat might shock your system."

He continued on down a short hallway and she followed. "I'll be fine, Castle. I just need a few minutes, and a bathroom, actually. It's been a while." Lucky for her, the cold had helped distract her in that regard.

"Of course, yeah, sorry. It's around the corner there on the left. If you're not out in five minutes, I'll come and break down the door." Kate snickered. "Come find me in the kitchen after. I'll make you some coffee." He pointed over his shoulder. "It's through here. Just yell _Marco_ if you get lost," he joked, and she felt the tension in the knot ease.

She finished her business and stood for a moment at the bathroom sink, let its warm water cascade over her hands. In the mirror, she found her cheeks rosy from the seaside breeze, her lips a soft shade of purple, her hair matted here and mussed there.

Rick made no secret of what he saw when he looked at her, and she felt the truth of it in his eyes, so she understood, deep inside, that her wish to not appear so raw, so rumpled, both for him and for what she hoped would become of that night, was a silly one. Still, it was there, but with nothing to be done about it, Kate simply leaned in and whispered three words to her reflection: "Just tell him."

He was standing at the kitchen counter with his back to her when she came in. His head was lowered, his hands clamped around the edge of the speckled granite, and she couldn't help but wonder, before she'd even begun what she'd come there to begin, if she'd made the wrong decision.

"I think that bathroom's as big as my first apartment," she said in jest, but, like a statue, he didn't flinch. The ensuing lull was ear-piercing. "I know I should've called, Castle. I'm sorry. God, I don't even know if you're here alone."

"Who else would be here?" he asked as he turned, genuinely curious not scoffing.

Kate looked away. "I don't know." But she knew exactly.

So did Rick.

"Yes, you do, and, also yes, I am here alone." He folded his arms. "Beckett, Sophia Turner is Clara Strike from the Storm books. Or Strike is a fictionalized, greatly magnified version of her. Sophia was with the CIA when I was introduced to her. She helped me paint a picture of that world, much like you are with the NYPD."

Kate came back to him, somewhat embarrassed yet not surprised he'd managed to see through her flimsily played ignorance. "You never told me about her. I didn't know you'd shadowed anyone before." Her embarrassment now expanded to include the jealousy she was sure dripped from her reception of the disclosure.

"No, I didn't." The coffee machine whirred in the lull between his thoughts. "My relationship with her wasn't strictly professional, and both ended because of it."

She drifted closer but gave space, parked her hip up against the counter. "Were you in love with her?" It probably wasn't a fair question. Hell, it wasn't even the next question that should've followed, but it was the only one her fear delivered to her, the only one it cared about.

"I didn't know what love was until I met you." He pivoted and opened the cabinet above his shoulder, pulled down two mugs. "I couldn't give her what she needed, either."

Kate's entire body flared with heat. She'd heard incredible words from him across their years, words that'd floored her with their power, but never any as heartbreaking.

"What? No, Rick, that's not…" She closed the distance between them. "Please don't say that, Castle. Please don't think that. If I've made you think that, I'm so sorry." He'd taken off his coat. She held his sweater balled in her fists. "You're everything I need, Castle. You're the only one I've ever needed, and you're everything I want."

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe her so badly. She could see it.

"I came here to tell you that I don't want to keep pretending to be someone I'm not. You're the only one who's ever known all of me, Castle, and I've tried like hell to fight that, but I'm tired and I hurt." Her forehead dropped against his chest. "I don't want loving you to be a secret I keep, anymore," she whispered into his warmth.

Rick pressed a kiss to the top of her head, lingered in the fragrance of salt and flowers that'd mingled in her hair.

"I don't want you to have to pretend with me, Kate. I don't want my love to scare you."

"Not being with you scares me. Losing you scares me. People I love get taken from me, Castle."

Rick swept his thumbs across her cheeks, brushed away a tear. "Then hold on to me and don't let me go. I won't ever let you go. I promise you that," he pledged and they wrapped themselves around one another.

**xxxx**

The coffee Rick had put on had long since finished gurgling by the time the two relinquished their embrace, and by then any bite of the cold in her bones had been soothed to warmth by the elixir that was his body.

"I still can't believe you're here," he said, "and even though I knew you felt something, too, I still can't believe why. I swear if I'd kept track of all the times I've fantasized about this…"

Kate traced a tender fingertip along the curve of his ear, simply because she was finally willing to allow herself to. "It would fill a book?" she tacked on wittily. He smiled and her newfound warmth began a climb toward heat. "I've thought about it a lot, too, and for a long time." Her eyes slid shut. "A long time," she released in a breath.

Rick cupped her cheeks and kissed her lips softly.

"Would you like to know what I'm going to remember most about it?" Dubious, she popped just one eye open. "It's these," he said, tugging with the finger he'd hooked around one of her belt loops on the sly. "May I speak freely, Detective?"

"After four years you're asking permission?"

"Okay, that's a fair point. I'm only asking because I want to be sure you're truly prepared to hear what it is I have to say. It's something I've never said to anyone before." Kate sputtered when he suddenly took her by the arms and backed her up a step. "After we have some of this coffee and you're no longer a human Popsicle, I'd like to carry you upstairs to my bed and remove these leather pants from your body with my teeth. I mean if that's a scenario that interests you, of course."

She bit her lip to mask her grin. "I told you you wouldn't be able to handle them."

"Oh, I assure you I'm very much looking forward to handling them," Rick assured her and reached for the coffee pot.

**xxxx**

He didn't even pour the coffee. He didn't even make it that far. The pot was still in his hand when their eyes met and they silently agreed he never would. What they both wanted was far more urgent.

They kissed in the hallway, on the stairs, pressed against the doorframe of his bedroom before they spun across its threshold and Kate found her hands pinned against the wall by his.

"You're all I've thought about since that night," Rick confessed, his parted lips grazing hers in promise. "I didn't know if I'd ever get to taste you again. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't taste you again."

Kate broke free from his grasp, pulled his mouth to hers, and met it, open and eager.

"Bed," she breathed. "Where's the bed?"

Rick secured a hand at the back of her thigh, hitched her leg up over his hip, and lifted her off the floor. "We're going. We're going." In seconds he had her across the room and on her back, her fingers tugging at his sweater until it was a memory. On all fours, hovering above her, he was almost panting. "God, I love you. I love you so much."

Her legs opened to him. He lowered his weight into their cradle. "I want to feel you." He was hard against her, and her hips began to roll in plea. Rick slid a hand beneath her shirt, grazed over the button of her pants. "Take them," she insisted, and then again when he flicked at her unfettered breast through the delicate cotton of her shirt.

He rose up onto his knees and pushed backward, did away with her boots before making his way back up, unhitching his own button and zipper in the process.

"You really rode that Harley here. Do you have any idea how sexy that is, Detective?" He pressed his lips to the exposed skin of her belly, teased a path down to her waistband with the tip of his tongue. Kate flexed the muscles of her abs and yanked her shirt over her head. "I've had so many fantasies about you and that thing, too, ever since you told me about it."

"Tell me." Her breath hitched when he unfastened her zipper and tugged firmly at the leather. "I want to hear your voice." She was wet and ready, didn't need the seduction, but she craved it, nonetheless.

"We're at the Old Haunt late one night," Rick began without any reluctance. "I've had a couple. You've had a couple. Not too much to be reckless, but we're both warm with it." He'd rested his chin where the seams of her pants converged in the middle and the vibration when he spoke had her practically dripping. "You offer to drive me home on the bike. It's not my first time, but it still gets me going. I climb on behind you. Our bodies are almost as close as two bodies can be, and I curl my arms around your waist, sneak my hands beneath the hem of your leather jacket-the one you wore here today, in fact."

He slowly began to tug, to unveil her to the heat of the room and of his breath. Without requisition, she angled up off the bed when he needed it to free her, his words never skipping a beat.

"The streets are surprisingly tame at that hour of early morning, and stopped at a red light, I feel you inch back, soften into my hold. You aren't sure I know it was intentional, but I do. We both smile softly behind our visors. No one knows but us."

"Castle," she whispered when he firmed his tongue along the black satin she wore underneath. Her fingers clutched at the comforter when they just had to be somewhere, do something.

"My cloaked fingers find the button of your jeans and pop it open, tickle their way down, down until they find the secret you've been hiding all night, the one that's become a pool between your legs, and I can't take it anymore, so I dive in."

"Kiss me, please," Kate implored and he did, but he didn't travel far. What he wanted was right there for the taking, and by the moan that escaped her, he understood he gave precisely what she asked.

Rick played and he played to the sounds of her pleasure, the most arousing to him of all sounds, and when he had her at the brink, he purposefully slowed and stopped.

"I want to hear you say it, Kate," he told her. "I'll give you more if you say it." He had no real intention of withholding anything from her or her body. Still he wondered if she knew in that moment what his craved most.

He felt her heel glide the length of his back and settle behind his shoulder. "I love you," she said and her knee fell open. "More."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

It was already Kate's favorite way to have him, for him to fill her; the one where she got to drive, where his hips were hugged between her thighs from above as they moved together as one. The one that made her gasp from the depths of his reach.

Rick's tongue had gifted riches, and then Kate had invited him inside. She'd rolled their bodies to take the reins, and he'd obliged without protest, because though he hadn't confessed it, she wasn't alone in the predilection he'd already come to recognize. Relinquishing control to her and her appetite turned him on like he'd never imagined.

The moon burned blue through the airy fabric that hung across the wall of glass in his bedroom, and it bathed her bare skin in its glow as she ground against him, as her hands kneaded at the muscles of his chest.

"You're so beautiful," slipped from Rick's lips like a forbidden secret, and it seemed impossible that he could even form words amid the surge of pleasure that struck when she sank into him, skimmed her breasts across his skin. "You feel so good. I want to be inside of you forever."

Kate giggled a puff of hot air against his neck, followed with a swipe of her tongue. "Gates already doesn't like you," she teased as she continued to rock. "I don't think she'd go for that in her precinct." She closed her teeth around his earlobe and then whispered in return. "But we aren't there now."

Her muscles clenched around him and she took him deeper. She'd told Lanie she'd never before experienced any man's body the way she had his, but that didn't touch the reality of it. His body set her nerves on fire. It left her sated and ravenous at once. It consumed every inch of her, to the deepest corners of her heart and mind that she'd always kept locked.

Rick could feel it beginning to rise in her to the surface when she straightened again and quickened. He braced his fingers around her thighs, let her pace them to the finish, and the swell of sounds that filled the room with their mutual release was brilliant in its resonance.

"Jesus, I swear I'm going to have to see a doctor," he huffed, fluttering aside the locks of Kate's hair that'd tumbled across his face when she'd collapsed. "If it's like this every time, you might be the death of me, Detective."

"Are you complaining, already?" From the pillow beside him, she drew her hand up the length of his torso and settled it over his shoulder. "Imagine my surprise."

He hooked her by the back of the knee, squeezed playfully. "Please, I may never complain again. What might such a generous sacrifice get me?"

"I guess this must be a dream after all," Kate chaffed. "You wouldn't last five minutes."

"Oh, but you know now that I can, don't you?" She smiled, pressed a kiss against his chest. "I'm so glad you came… here, to my house, today," he stammered around his late-realized bit of colorful phrasing. "When I brought that coffee to the precinct, I wanted to see you so badly, especially after that kiss."

She lifted onto her elbow. "Kiss, Castle? That was more like a hit-and-run."

"Well, if you brought your cuffs with you, by all means, slap them on me. I'll play. But, don't even try to pretend like you didn't enjoy it. I know that thing your tongue does when it's happy."

Kate leaned in for his ear. "I do, too," she affirmed and then proceeded to prove it. It almost pained her how talented his mouth was, since he employed it so often to aggravate her. "What are you doing out here in the Hamptons, by the way?" she asked once she'd offered thorough and irrefutable evidence.

"I managed to kill two birds, actually. A writer buddy of mine got married recently-eloped-so he and his wife threw a delayed shindig to celebrate, and I wanted to check in on the house. I haven't been here in a while, and I don't like it to sit for too long without."

She nestled back into the crook of his arm. "Another wedding, huh? They seem to be going around in your world."

"Just say the word, Detective," Rick commented offhand. "It could be your world, too. That's a world I'd be very happy in."

Kate snickered. "Yeah right, Castle."

Suddenly the room got very quiet. He wasn't laughing.

"Castle-"

"Sorry, I guess I don't find it as ridiculous an idea as you do." He lifted free the arm beneath her head without a warning. "I need to use the bathroom," he said and climbed out of the bed.

Talk about hit-and-run, she thought as she lay there and watched him disappear around the corner.

**xxxx**

Kate immediately crawled to the end of the bed and grabbed Rick's sweater, slipped into it, and went after him. The bathroom door was open, and he was standing inside at one of the two sinks, his hands anchored on either side of the vessel, much as she'd been downstairs earlier.

She let her body ease against the doorframe, kicked one ankle over the other. "I know it isn't the time, but you look really sexy right now," she said and he turned his neck ever so slightly in her direction. He was still naked, his hair still mussed from her thighs and her fingers and the pillows, and something about the hills and valleys of the muscle in his arm seduced her eye. "Yes, I like looking at you, too."

Rick rotated his body, leaned back against the vanity, took a moment. "We haven't talked a lot about that day, about what happened to you at Montgomery's funeral." Kate couldn't have been more surprised by what finally came out of him, but she let him go on without telling him so. "I wouldn't let the paramedics take you, not without me. I shouted and I fought and they shouted and they fought back, but there was just no way in hell I was letting go of you."

She didn't remember that part of it. That wasn't a lie. And he was right. They hadn't talked about it, not as they should've. She'd spent so much time since working through her own trauma of that day, but she didn't know the true depth of his. Now, at a moment so unexpected-as was the infamous way of trauma's reverberation-there it was, revealing itself.

"I was holding on to your hand in the back of the ambulance, and mine was covered in your blood, sticky. I realized how stupid it was after, but I remember hoping you didn't think it was sweat. Like, I was worried you would think it was gross and you wouldn't ever want to hold it again." He shook his head. "I could feel your fingers closed around mine. I swore I could, and as long as I could feel them, feel that little squeeze, I knew you were with me. And then suddenly I couldn't, and you weren't."

Kate crossed to him, pushed her arms beneath his at his sides and around his body, left a kiss on the skin above his heart. "I'm so sorry, Castle. I can't imagine. If that'd been you, I-"

"It was so strange, Kate. In those seconds, you were dead. You died, holding my hand, and I had never felt more alive. I knew that was true because I had never, ever hurt that much before. I had never and I have never felt more pain than I did in those seconds without you." His arms came up around her. "I don't ever want to be without you."

Then she understood.

"I don't think the idea is ridiculous, Castle. Hearing you say it, I guess, just took me by surprise." She pulled back and their eyes met. His had never looked more beautiful to her. "I don't ever want to be without you, either." She kissed his lips softly. "Would you come and get back into bed with me? I just want to be there with you."

"I'll be out in a minute," Rick said and then stopped her when she reached the door. "Hey, Detective, just for future reference, it's always the time. Exactly how sexy do I look?"

**xxxx**

Kate was still wearing his sweater and nothing more when Rick slid back into bed behind her late the next morning. He curled around her body, filled into her angles and arcs like water, a hand slithering its way beneath the pullover and finding a home atop her breast.

Her nipple quickly firmed to attention as a bolt of arousal plucked her like a string, and she smiled for more reasons than her fuzzy brain could process.

"You're back," her voice squeaked, "and you're warm."

Rick trailed his hand down the front of her body and between her legs. "Mmm," he hummed with his discovery. "You missed me." She came over onto her back, offered her lips in proof of his assertion. "Well, that was a five-star appetizer." He pecked the tip of her nose. "I made us breakfast. Come downstairs with me. You must be starving."

"This place is as big as a hotel, and has service like one. I like that." She grabbed a handful of his hair. "Can we come back here for dessert?"

"This hotel's famous for its dessert," he proclaimed gleefully and rolled away. "Come on, and wear what you're wearing. I've earned it. You'll see in a minute."

On the kitchen counter, he'd set out a plate of giant muffins, a bowl of cut fruit, a box of cereal, and a carafe of orange juice, all of which, by the bounce in his step as he fetched each of them a cup of coffee, he felt undeservedly proud of himself over.

"You _made_ breakfast, Castle?" She'd indulged his wish and left her legs bare, stood there watching him with an arched brow. "Seriously?"

Rick set her cup on the counter, enticed her over. "Made, bought, whichever. It's a fine spread. That bag's for you, too, by the way. Sorry, I don't know what you normally use. I hope what I picked is okay." Along with breakfast, he bought her a collection of toiletries, since she came out from the city with nothing.

"Is it finally that pony you promised me ages ago?" On her way by, Kate dipped her fingers into the bowl of fruit and closed her lips around a grape. As if he wasn't already titillated to the max by the sight of her in his clothes.

"Detectives with smart mouths don't deserve ponies. But if you're looking to ride something, I do happen to have an idea."

Kate glanced up from the bag. "Sustenance, then something," she told him, returning to the goodies. "And I suggest you eat a lot. This stuff is great, Castle. Thank you for doing this."

"You're welcome." Rick lifted himself up onto the counter. "So, I was thinking about something while I was out… and you can just stop looking at me like that right now. It's fine. It's actually something we talked about recently. I think, in light of recent events of the naked kind, we should revisit it."

"Why does this already sound like a bad idea?"

He spat out his disbelief. "Please, when have I ever had a bad idea? Eat a muffin, hear me out. You remember that whole thing before the wedding with Jenny and that ledger and-ew, anyway, I'm sure you remember. Well, you and I had a little chat at one point about our respective, um, histories."

Kate popped a bite of her chosen cranberry muffin and swallowed. She knew exactly where his road was leading. "Honestly, why does it even matter how many, Castle? I remember our little chat, yeah," she said off his look. "Are you suddenly wondering now how you match up?" There was a chuckle in her words until she caught his spine snap rigid. "Is that it? Really?"

"What, I can't wonder about that?"

She dusted the crumbs off her fingers and came around the counter, positioned herself between his dangling knees. "Castle, you have an ego the size of ten city blocks, so, no, I didn't think you would wonder. And I know we haven't been doing it that long, but we have been doing it a lot." She pinched the outside of his thigh. "I haven't been faking it, y'know."

"Oh, you just think this is so funny, don't you?"

Grabbing a handful of his sweatshirt, she tugged him down to her level so their mouths were close. "You can go ahead and pout all you want. I'm still not going to spill." Her eyes fixed on his lips. "You're just going to have to believe me when I tell you that your body, Castle, has already given mine more pleasure than any man's body ever has."

It took all of two seconds.

"God, I'm good," Rick smirked and planted a swift kiss that left Kate unsteady on her feet. "But if I guess, will you tell me if I'm right?" The man didn't possess the first clue how not to push. "Fine," he grumbled when her only necessary answer was no answer at all. "Go, eat, tell me what you'd like to do before we have to leave; unless, that is, I can use this pleasure machine of mine to convince you to call in sick tomorrow and stay here with me another night."

"I wish I could, but Ryan's off this week for the honeymoon. Who would babysit Espo?"

"Right. Selfish jerks," he grumbled. "Okay, so we have a few hours, at least. Maybe a walk down on the beach? It's cold, but there is sun. I'll even let you keep my sweater on. Unfortunately for me, you'll probably need pants."

Kate picked another grape out of the bowl of fruit, signaled a toss, and he dropped his mouth open just as it hit him square on the forehead and caromed to the floor.

"Good thing you've got that pleasure machine going for you," she mocked with a giggle. "A walk sounds nice, but then I want to take a swim in that pool you call a bathtub."

Rick's lips curled. "I guess this would be the part where I make a joke about how you enjoy big things and then you roll your eyes at me."

And she did.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Kate stretched one leg out of the milky water, let it come to rest along the curl of the porcelain's edge and her eyes slide shut. They'd spent more than an hour out walking the beach before retreating to the warmth of the house, to the heat of that bath, to what remained of their first day together as something more than they'd been the one before.

Her body sat nestled between his legs, her back set against the rise and fall of his chest, the gentle strike of piano keys serenading them from somewhere off in the distance. It felt like the most familiar sort of new Kate had ever lived. It felt like she was home.

"This tub reminds me of that hotel you kidnapped me to in L.A.," she said. "There was one just like it in my room."

"Kidnapped," Rick echoed but with a sneer. "Sounds like you had it really rough." His hands came up out of the water and over her breasts, gave her shoulders a squeeze before disappearing again beneath the surface.

"You know what I remember about L.A., besides how incredible you were for Royce?" Kate hummed her curiosity. "Well, of course, there was you climbing out of that pool. That was… wow. That was like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. But, no, not that. What I remember most is how badly I wanted to kiss you that first night. I mean, every time I'm around you I want to kiss you. It's always been that way, but that was the first time, those few seconds before you got up, that I thought maybe you'd actually let me, and that was like fire."

Kate trailed a finger across her lips with the memory. "I got up because I would've let you if I hadn't."

"Really?"

"After I went into my room, I came back out. I don't think I would've ever told you that," she thought aloud. "You'd already gone into yours."

"Did you crawl out through the hole I stared into your door?"

They both laughed.

"Lanie told me it would be harder to keep pretending I didn't love you than it would be to let myself finally feel this, all of this. That night with you was a really hard night to pretend my way through." A soft smile came and went. "Actually, I remember I did take you to bed with me, in a way. I know it wasn't… it shouldn't have been with me while I was out there doing what I was doing, but with you so close, I just needed to do something to try to get you out of my head so I could fucking focus."

Rick bowed for her ear. "If that means what I think it means, I should apologize in advance to your back. I promise he means no harm. Also, this is one of the sexiest things I've ever thought in my life."

Kate wrapped her fingers around one of his hands, guided it to her breast. "I should probably come clean and confess that wasn't the first time-or the last. I guess you've been inspiration for me, too. That seems only fair."

"You were with Josh then," he remarked, not as some sort of charge but in woeful recollection, "speaking of hard things to pretend. If I ever told you I was happy for you two, I lied. I was bitter and jealous, with a dash of I-hate-that-guy."

"I was. But Josh wasn't you. I never let him in, and he never tried to fight his way in." She let a brief moment pass. "Do you really want to get married for a third time, Castle?"

He turned his head, settled his cheek against her hair. "No, I want to truly be married, for the first time, and to you, if I'm that lucky. Look, I'll take as much responsibility for the failure of my first two cracks at it as I earned, and I'm sure I did earn a lot of it, but none of us made the investment we should've and that was because none of us was where we were supposed to be. I just want to be able to show you that it's always been you, that you're my only place."

Kate pulled her body up, scooted around to face him, reached out and caressed his cheek. "I do love you. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to say it."

Their lips met and lingered.

"Just never stop," Rick whispered against hers when they parted.

"Do you maybe want to go back in there," she said with a flick of her chin toward the bedroom, "do some stuff to each other's bodies that'll make the bed blush?"

Without a peep, he thrust a hand into the water, came out with the stopper and its chain.

"I'll race you."

**xxxx**

Martha found Rick with his feet kicked up on the desk in his office when she returned home from a dinner outing that evening, his fingers fluttering across the keyboard of the laptop he had propped up against his thighs.

He'd given Kate a head start back to the city, knowing it would take her a bit more time on the bike, and then he'd raced to the loft, abandoned his bag in the foyer, and immediately began filling pages with the words their night together had inspired.

Except they weren't words intended for any book. They weren't meant for anyone's eyes but Kate's, and that, for him, was an intimacy he hadn't previously known. Despite his prowess at penning lucrative tales for the masses, he couldn't recall ever having been moved to write for just one. But, then again, Kate wasn't "just" anything, and though he didn't know what might come of it, the urge to get it all down simply overcame him.

"It's nice to see you, darling," she said as she stepped through the doorway. "Getting some work done after spending the weekend at play, are we?"

She startled him to a jolt. He didn't even know she was there until she opened her mouth. "Jesus, Mother, remind me to buy a bell or something to tie around your ankle." He folded closed the lid, set his computer aside. "Where were you?"

"I had a bite to eat with a friend." Martha approached the desk, tapped its edge with her knuckles. "And you, hmm? How are things with your friend?"

A grin tugged at his lips and then erupted. It would've been easier to stop a speeding train with a feather. There wasn't any point in lying, anyway. He knew she'd been the one to give Kate the address to the house, hence her glaring tone.

"Well, Mother, my friend and I haven't really talked about me talking about how things are, so I guess, for now, I'll just say that seeing my friend was a very nice surprise, and that I think we'll be seeing a lot more of one another from now on."

Martha threw her hand over her heart, her face as light as her son's. "This mother couldn't have asked for better news, and with it-" She paused when his phone rang, turned, and headed for the door. "I'll leave you to your work," she said with a wave.

"Hang on a sec, Mother. Hey," he answered Kate's call and requested the same. "Thank you for helping my friend. And me."

"I have only one thing to say, kiddo, and that is it's about damn time."

Rick leaned back in his chair once she'd gone, brought the phone up to his ear. "Are you home and in one beautiful piece? I already miss your face."

"I am. I got here a few minutes ago. I think I'm going to jump in a shower, get rid of the chill. I wanted to ask, I mean I know you've been gone all weekend and I understand if you need to be home, but I was wondering if you might want to spend the night here with me."

"Yes."

"If you haven't eaten, maybe I can make us something for dinner."

"Yes."

She just kept going on, straight through his repeated green lights.

"We'll obviously have to go separately to the precinct in the morning, but I just-"

"Kate, hear me," he interjected with a chuckle. "I'll be there in an hour. We'll eat. We'll have a sleepover. Tomorrow will be tomorrow and it'll be fine, okay? Now, hang up, have your shower and think of me the entire time, because you can be damn sure you in there is all I'm going to be thinking about."

**xxxx**

Rick knocked on Kate's door an hour later, nearly to the minute, and she answered wearing that same bathrobe she'd emerged from the bathroom in the weekend prior. His body reacted to it instantly, though he did manage to mask the severity of its buckle behind a boast about the bottle of wine he toted over with him, and, thankfully, she didn't seem any the wiser.

"You smell good," he breathed hotly against her neck. "I bet you taste even better, but that's for another room." He peered over her shoulder, sniffed at the air. "Funny, she said she was going to make dinner, and yet."

Kate plucked the bottle from his hand, walked off for the kitchen with him right behind. "Oh, you know, make, order, whichever." She floated a _gotcha!_ eyebrow. "Our pizza should be here in a few minutes. Will you answer the door when it shows up? I don't feel like putting clothes on."

He reached for two glasses when she pointed. "So many things for your future reference, Beckett. Um, it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll say yes to anything you ask if it involves you not wanting to put clothes on."

"Noted, thanks," she said with sass, uncorking the bottle and pouring for both. "So, Alexis and your mom were okay with you leaving again after you just got back?"

"Thank you." Rick raised his glass to her, swallowed a sip. "Of course, they were fine. Alexis had homework to finish, and she promised to keep an eye on Mother so she didn't get into any trouble."

He could see she wanted to ask but maybe wasn't sure how, so he offered. "Just so you know, I didn't tell them I was coming over here to spend the night. I said you called about a case. You and I haven't discussed yet how much you want or don't want people to know. With Gates, I'm sure work is probably going to be an issue, so."

The arrival of their pizza delivery butted in, and Rick went to tend to it. They sat beside one another on the sofa, ate over the coffee table.

"This is good," he commented around a bite. "Thank you for _ordering_." He nudged her with his elbow. Kate gave it right back.

"Do you want to tell everyone, Castle?" she asked finally. "Right away, I mean."

He set his slice on his plate, rubbed her back with his hand. "If you're asking me to sneak around with you for a while, to steal kisses and secretly whisper in your ear all the naughty things I'd like to do to you, then my answer is yes. And, if you're asking me to take out a billboard in Times Square tonight, announcing to the world that we love each other, then my answer is yes. Kate, this is big and new, what's happening here, and I get that. I really do."

She leaned in and kissed a spot of sauce from his lips. "Lanie already knows, obviously. I'm sure Martha probably thinks something's going on. I didn't say it in so many words, but-"

"I didn't either. And I did. She's known how I feel about you for a long time. How could I keep it a secret, really? I can't get the woman out of my house." Rick drew his fingertip down along her neck and into the vee of her robe. "I just want to love you. That's all I care about."

With her eyes fixed on his, Kate took his hand in hers and guided it to the bow of her sash. He promptly yanked on its end without need of further cue.

"I think we should go into the other room and talk about it some more," she suggested. "Maybe I'll let you whisper in my ear for a few hours. We can heat this up after. Or we can have it for breakfast, y'know, if a few hours somehow turn into all night long."

"Mmm, cold pizza's my favorite." Rick slid the robe from her shoulder, sampled the freshly perfumed skin beneath. Suddenly, in a single motion, he curled an arm behind her knees and stood, lifting her along with him. The table and its doodads rattled in the wake. "Well, my second favorite," he said and carried her off to the bedroom.

**xxxx**

They came to a decision that, at least for the present moment, they'd play in it alone together, that it might be fun to tiptoe and tuck away into the shadows, and so Rick ducked out of her apartment before the sun the next morning, set off to ready for the day at his own.

It would be his first back at the 12th after a week away, and he arrived with a pair of coffees in hand-too anxious and too early, it seemed-to a near-empty bullpen. He parked himself in his chair in wait, and after a couple of minutes, grabbed a pen and a sticky pad from Kate's desk, her absence affording him the opportunity to scribble a note, which he then folded and tucked beneath her cup.

Not long after, the elevator chimed and Kate emerged from it with Captain Gates at her side. He immediately straightened up like he was a boy in school and his teacher had just walked into the classroom.

Kate's eyes smiled as they neared. Her captain's did not.

"Mr. Castle," she began in irked voice, "if it was true, I'd tell you it was nice to see you. It isn't. Fifteen minutes, in my office, Detective Beckett," she continued as she moved along, leaving Rick, once again, with dashed hopes of his pseudo boss's, at the very least, acceptance.

He threw a glance over his shoulder, turned back to Kate. "Maybe if I brought her a coffee, too."

She settled her bag under her desk. "Yeah, I don't think that'll do it, Castle." When she sat, she folded her hands gladly around her own.

"It will if I lace it with something," he grumbled. "Don't worry. Yours has been stirred only with vanilla and love. I did put another little touch on it, though." He waggled a finger and she lifted it off the desk.

"Is this going to be some new thing you do now?"

Rick leaned in, spoke quietly. "If you enjoy it, it can be. Maybe you should read it first."

Kate unfolded the square of paper and read what he'd written, that same smile in her eyes narrowing them to slits.

_The only thing I'm going to be able to think about all day today is the sound of your voice begging me not to stop, _it said.

When she was through-four passes later-she crumpled it up and shoved it into her pocket, coolly drank down a sip of her coffee.

"So?" he asked, his body still close. "What do you think?"

She slowly slid the cup his way. He eyed it and then her with a brew of curiosity and confusion.

"I think if you're going to start writing me notes like that every day, Castle, it'll save you five bucks, because I definitely won't need that stuff anymore."

**XXXX**


End file.
